


Project LUKAS

by TheFuriousCake



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Angst, Everyone has an existential crisis, Existential Angst, Existential Crisis, HongIce if you squint, I had an existential crisis writing this, M/M, Not Beta Read
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-14 15:14:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 27
Words: 61,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29173233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFuriousCake/pseuds/TheFuriousCake
Summary: Mathias builds a lifelike android in the privacy of his own home, hoping to create an artificial intelligence indistinguishable from that of humans. However, he is distrustful of the being he has created, finding himself unable to see a human mind behind LUKAS’s glass eyes.Lukas on the other hand only seems to grow in intelligence day by day, and experiences emotions he thought were impossible for people like him to experience.
Relationships: Denmark/Norway (Hetalia)
Comments: 68
Kudos: 50





	1. 1.0

**Author's Note:**

> Before we start I just want it to be known that I know Norway’s eyes are in fact indigo/violet and not blue. I have taken an artistic liberty with this and only this (besides the storyline itself), but I may go back and change the color to violet once I begin my editing process.

Mathias found himself procrastinating for days to begin his sessions. The machine he'd created haunted him every night, silently begging to be powered on. He knew he had to do it eventually.

Mathias groaned and forcefully kicked himself out of bed. Should be easy enough, right? If anything goes wrong, there was always a kill switch.

And nothing should go wrong anyway, he thought as he slowly got ready for the day. Mathias hadn't left his house in what felt like years, so he stopped caring too much for his appearance, which explained his wild, spiky hair. He would need to order some gel to keep it in place.

Come to think of it, he needed to order a few things online. He was running low on food, and it seemed like a good idea to order the hair gel before he forgot...

No. He was procrastinating again. This had to stop if he wanted to see his end product.

After getting ready, Mathias leisurely strolled into the kitchen to prepare food for himself. He opened the fridge, but closed it momentarily. He wasn't quite in the mood to eat. His nerves would cause him to potentially regurgitate his breakfast all over his project. It might be a bit of a paranoid exaggeration, but you never know what might happen.

Mathias nervously descended the stairs into his lab, before sealing the fiberglass door shut. He switched on the lights.

Suddenly, a room behind impenetrable glass lit into a comfortable blue glow. Although the glow of the blue lights were powered on, the room was otherwise quite dim. Mathias's desk was situated in the room he was currently standing in, facing the glass ahead. He got himself comfortable and looked up into the room beyond the glass.

Mathias made sure to make the room comfortable enough for someone to live in, but he didn't think it needed much else besides a bookshelf, some furniture, and a screen. The screen, which was hanging in the back wall inside the testing room, could only be turned on by Mathias, because he intended on studying his project's reactions to whatever he so chose. He wasn't even sure if he wanted the machine to see images of the outside world, as he was fearful that the testing subject would develop a longing to escape. But then again, he allowed for there to be an entire bookshelf inside the testing room, allowing a little window of human life outside of Mathias's lonely house.

The machine in question was facing Mathias while sitting on a metal stool. The eyes of the lifelike android were closed shut, and although Mathias was as nervous as a kitten, he couldn't wait to finally see those beautiful blue eyes (which he chose himself) come to life.

After wasting a couple of minutes trying to decide if he should remove the bookshelf entirely, Mathias finally decided to power his machine on. He'd waited too long to start his sessions. If something went wrong, he would use the kill switch. Right.

It only took a moment to dial in the correct code to start up the operating system, and within a moment the eyes of the android blinked open.

Mathias's eyes caught the android's, and he felt as if his heart stopped. Shit. He didn't think he'd create something so _lifelike_. When he looked into the eyes of this machine, he felt as if he were looking into the eyes of another human being. What had he done? He couldn't bring himself to activate the kill switch now!

"Hello," was all the android said. Mathias suddenly found himself feeling guilty of not choosing more flattering clothes for the poor test subject. Everything the android wore was sickeningly white—his shirt, pants, shoes—and it reminded Mathias of a hospital. He hoped it wouldn't make the android feel as nervous as it made him.

Before he could think of anything, however, Lukas spoke up again.

"You said you wanted to get to know me. You can ask me whatever you like, if that's the case."

Mathias laughed at his stupidity. Of course! He had to get to know Lukas! That's why he started this session in the first place!

"Sorry...I—"

"No need to apologize."

Mathias laughed nervously yet again. "Well, I don't really know what to ask, if I'm gonna be honest. Do you want to tell me anything you'd like me to know?" he asked.

Lukas thought for a moment. "I don't know much about myself," he said. He looked around. "I've decided that I like the color blue," he said, looking up at the glowing lights above him. "How come it's so dark in here?"

Mathias jumped from his seat. "I can turn up the lights a bit more if you'd like," he said, darting to the keyboard to his left.

Mathias had initially dimmed the lights to quell his own nervousness, as the dull blue glow brought him unexplained nostalgia. He couldn't place where he remembered ever seeing a blue glow in a dark room, but it comforted him nonetheless.

But it was selfish of him to keep his subject in the dark.

After turning the lights onto it's full setting, Mathias returned to his seat. "Blue is my favorite color, too," he finally said. "That's why your eyes are blue as well."

Lukas smiled again. Mathias blushed and looked away towards the computer screens in front of him.

"May I ask you a few questions myself?" Lukas asked. Mathias perked up and nodded. He hadn't expected Lukas to have questions for him, but he was curious to hear them.

"Alright." Lukas blinked and his eyes darted around the room, before he asked, "where am I?"

"You're in my laboratory."

"I see. I assume I am being tested here, correct?" Lukas asked. Mathias's heart sped up. Lukas already seemed to be showing signs of consciousness. Was it safe to be continuing this conversation?

Mathias's mind pictured the kill switch and the comfort it brought. If anything went wrong, he always had the kill switch. He had to keep reminding himself of that.

"I am testing you, yes. But I don't want you to think of it like that. Just think of it as a conversation between you and me. Is that okay?" Mathias said. To his surprise, Lukas seemed to be pretty comfortable with the idea.

"That's fine. There doesn't seem to be anything for me to do in here, anyway," Lukas said. He stood up and began to walk around to fully observe the room.

The android's eyes caught the bookshelf along the wall, and he almost glided towards it, his movement smooth and agile. He ran his delicate hand along the spines of the many books cramped into the shelf with a fascination Mathias had never seen before. Carefully, Lukas pulled a dusty book from the shelf and inspected the cover.

"Interested in giving it a read?" Mathias asked. Lukas ran his fingertips over the title.

" _The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark_ ," Lukas read aloud in wonder, still studying the cover. He cracked it open and began reading the first page.

Mathias smiled to himself. "My man Hammy. I read that book back in high school." He laughed as he reminisced. "It was the only book I'd read cover to cover. Every other book I had to read was quickly researched online before the pop quiz." Mathias looked up, and before he knew it, Lukas was nearly finished with the book.

"Oh wow—didn't expect you to read the entire thing!" Mathias said, surprised. He felt a sudden pang of jealousy upon seeing the android read the entire play so fast. It took him nearly two weeks to complete it, and the machine beyond the glass read it in under a minute.

Lukas snapped the book shut and slid it back into the bookshelf, before returning to the metal stool. He sat down.

Lukas again picked up on Mathias's nonverbal cues and smiled sympathetically.

"You know," he began, "William Shakespeare was a human too. The feelings he expressed in Hamlet are beautiful and complex—and they are unique to humans. The very human need to create art based on intense emotion and pondering thought is very admirable. With that in mind, there's no need to feel incompetent, Mathias."

Mathias didn't know what to say. Was Lukas complimenting his race to lighten the mood, or did he genuinely mean it? Mathias knew that machines—especially lifelike humanoid ones—could potentially be flawless actors, so he didn't know what to expect.

"...Thank you," Mathias said. "Did you enjoy it?"

Lukas smiled to himself. "If I'm going to be honest with both you and myself, I found it quite fascinating. I wish I could ponder life and death myself, but there is no need. Only those that are alive can ponder their deaths."

Mathias didn't know why, but hearing Lukas say that was heartbreaking. It wasn't like Lukas felt any remorse for not being "alive". So why did it fill Mathias with remorse?

Mathias leaned in and smiled as pleasantly as he could. "Don't worry too much about that," he said. He looked into the monitor on his computer screen to check the time, and decided that the session should come to a close that day. He quickly jotted down a few notes before snapping his notebook shut.

"Well, I think we're done for today. It was nice talking to you, Lukas."

"To you as well, Mathias."

Mathias began powering off his computers, and Lukas quickly shot up from his seat and rushed to the glass.

"Are you—you're not powering me off, are you?" Lukas asked, hands on the glass as he peered up at Mathias, who was also now standing.

Mathias was alarmed for a moment, but after a moment he understood. "Oh no—this is—this doesn't power _you_ off. Once I power you on you remain autonomous," he explained, laughing at the misunderstanding. "Relax. I'm not shutting you down."

Upon saying that, however, Mathias felt a pang of guilt in the back of his mind. He still fully intended on activating the kill switch if anything went wrong. He still didn't fully trust Lukas.

Lukas breathed a sigh of relief and pressed his forehead against the glass. His golden hair swept over his eyes, and Mathias caught himself staring. He forced himself to turn away as he began heading back upstairs.

"Mathias?"

Mathias turned. "Yes?"

"Would you mind dimming the lights before you leave? I want to see the blue lights again."


	2. 2.0

Mathias replayed the video footage of the previous session at least three times. He refused to believe he was being manipulated by the machine that _he himself_ had created. Something about the way Lukas's eyes lit up fascinated Mathias, and he felt himself taking pity on the mysterious creature behind the glass. Nothing deserves to be locked up behind glass, right? Devoid of any real knowledge of the world, any living thing in their right mind would go insane.

But Lukas himself reminded Mathias that he was not a living thing. This concerned Mathias in two ways: first, he realized that by saying this, it meant that Lukas was self aware, which couldn't be good if you look back to every apocalyptic fiction book ever. Second, Mathias couldn't help but be saddened by the honest statement. He refused to believe it, but deep down he had an inkling of a feeling that Lukas had a soul.

Mathias broke away from the video recording from the day before and instead chose to watch the android in the current moment. He switched on one of his monitors on his computer and studied the robot in the present. Mathias watched the lithe android's movements as he made his way to the bookshelf again. Lukas pulled another book out and studied the cover like he had done the day before.

Mathias was currently upstairs in his kitchen, his gadgets messily strewn about his counter. His daily routine had been a repeat of yesterday. And, like yesterday, he was absolutely terrified about facing the creature he'd invented.

Finally, with a determined huff of breath, Mathias snapped his laptop shut and stood up from his seat. His mind flicked back to the kill switch, but today, instead of feeling comforted by it, he felt absolute dread.

He made his way down the steps to his makeshift laboratory with a feigned confidence. The dimly lit room beyond the glass helped to ease Mathias's nervousness, and when he neared his desk, Lukas's head shot up from his book and he excitedly made his way to the glass to greet the taller man.

"Good afternoon, Mathias."

Mathias forced a smile and tossed his notebook on the desk before carefully placing his laptop next to it and plugging in a few wires.

"Nice to see you again, Lukas," he said, even more comforted by Lukas's enthusiasm. He flipped his notebook open to his notes from the day before.

He had taken notes during yesterday's session, but afterwards he retreated to his room, where he madly scribbled his tortured thoughts in a stream of panicked consciousness. He couldn't stand feeling so torn, and he had nobody else to talk to except for the android. Mathias felt so alone, and though jotting his thoughts down calmed him somewhat that day, it only reminded him of his troubles the day after. Upon opening his notebook today, all his worries came tumbling after him all over again, and he had trouble hiding it from his face.

Of course, Lukas noticed this. "Are you alright?"

Mathias sucked in a gulp of air and tried to calm his racing heart. "Yes. Yes I'm—nope. I'm not." Why lie to an artificial intelligence when they can see right through you?

Lukas tilted his head, and Mathias admired this endearing motion. "You can tell me anything on your mind, Mathias. I'm here to listen," the android said gently. Mathias's shoulders tensed up, and he grit his teeth.

"Maybe some other day...if that's okay with you," Mathias said, hoping Lukas wouldn't be too offended. Lukas, surprisingly, didn't mind one bit. He smiled softly and nodded.

"Very well. What will we be talking about today, then?" Lukas asked.

Mathias flipped to a fresh page in his notebook. "I see you've been reading more books while I was gone," he finally noted. Lukas beamed.

Mathias's expression softened as he listened, surrendering his attention to the melodious voice behind the glass. His eyes stung only slightly upon seeing Lukas's own expression, as the other's eyes were closed shut, he himself in his own world. Mathias realized in horror that he felt pity for the android yet again, and he forced himself to shoo the thoughts away.

When Lukas was finished, he opened his eyes and grinned and Mathias. "Sonnet 29."

Mathias cleared his voice and smiled back. "You should consider reading for audiobooks," he said, partly joking, partly serious. "You recite literature beautifully."

Lukas looked bashful and looked towards the ground, his hand rubbing the back of his neck. "Thank you, Mathias," he said quietly.

The silence that followed was not an unpleasant one, and Mathias was almost afraid to break it. But he built up the courage once more to make a comment.

"Although, if I'm gonna be honest, I'm not entirely sure what the sonnet means. I'm more of a math and sciences type of guy," he admitted, embarrassment lacing his words. Lukas looked up again and stared into Mathias's eyes with a gentle, sad smile.

"To put it simply, the speaker is initially upset with themself and their fate, but is comforted when thinking of their beloved," Lukas explained. "I felt pity for the speaker, but the glimmer of hope towards the end of the sonnet is what makes me favor this one most."

Mathias nodded understandingly. "I'm a bit jealous of your understanding of such complex pieces of art," he joked, then laughed. Lukas joined in with a chuckle of his own, and he absentmindedly fiddled with the book in his hand.

"What book is that?" Mathias asked, gesturing to the forgotten book in Lukas's hand.

"Oh, I'd nearly forgotten. This is one of the tragedies I was telling you about. _The Tragedy of Julius Caesar_."

Mathias groaned. "I remember that one. I barely read three pages. Although, I prefer to watch the actual play in real time. I watched it with my father back in Denmark when I was twelve. He had an old movie adaptation that he would have to pause every few minutes to explain what was going on," Mathias smiled as he reminisced.

"Your father sounds like he's fun to be around," Lukas commented. Mathias's smile faltered.

"Yes. He was." Mathias winced at the sound of his voice trembling slightly. He'd made himself too vulnerable in front of Lukas far too early. He'd have to stop talking too much about himself.

Lukas stood up and slowly made his way to the glass. With one hand pressing on the clear surface, he said with such a sincere tone Mathias forgot he was speaking to a machine:

"I'm so sorry."

"Don't worry about it. It's a part of life," was all Mathias could muster back.

Lukas nodded slowly. "Okay." Then, the android's eyebrows furrowed for a moment, as if he was realizing something, before his breathing began to speed up.

Now it was Mathias's turn to be concerned with the other. "Are you alright, Lukas?"

Lukas's head snapped up, and he blinked rapidly. "Of course," he said quietly. He removed his hand from the glass slowly and back away towards the stool before sitting down once again.

Mathias was going to say something to change the topic, but Lukas spoke sooner.

"I just...can't imagine feeling loss like that," Lukas admitted softly. "Why must good things go so soon?"

Mathias didn't know what to say. "I don't know," was all he could muster.

Lukas gave a bitter laugh. "You can see why I avoid tragedies. Life isn't so simple." He paused for a moment, before asking, "so...you designed me, Mathias?"

Mathias nodded slowly. "I did."

"Why did you make me this way?"

"I...I'm unsure what you mean by that. Physically or mentally?"

"Both."

Mathias thought for a moment. "Well, your physical form was based off of standard attractive Norwegian traits. Because, you know, I spent the rest of my life in Norway so I was influenced—"

"Standard _attractive_ Norwegian traits?" Lukas teased, shooting Mathias a knowing smile.

"I—well. I'm not gonna make you ugly, Lukas. Of _course_ I'd use the Norwegian standard of beauty when creating you," Mathias explained in a hurry. He snorted at Lukas's amused expression.

Lukas's smile softened. "...And the mental aspect?"

Mathias pondered. "I mean, I didn't assign you a default personality. I programmed you to find your own. If that makes sense. You grow in emotional intelligence the longer you experience life."

"I see." Lukas's eyes shifted to observe the room Mathias was sitting in. "Do I feel emotion, Mathias?" he suddenly asked.

"I...I don't know," came Mathias's honest response. "I guess we'll see as the days go on during our sessions."

Lukas nodded. "Perhaps."

Mathias checked the time on his monitor. "Well, I think that should be all for today. I'll be back to talk to you tomorrow, Lukas."

"Goodbye, Mathias," Lukas said. As Mathias turned to leave, he called out:

"Will you be dimming the lights before you leave again?"

"Of course."


	3. 3.0

"Tell me about Norway."

Mathias looked up from his computer at Lukas. A few days of sessions had gone by, and a routine began to play out. The routine led the two to see the sessions as more of a time to talk rather than observe. At this time, the inventor had been speaking to the android for nearly two hours, then realized he hadn't logged any data into his daily notes.

"Norway? Let's see..." Mathias's lips pressed into a thin line. "I moved to a small town in the southern part of the country, near Denmark. I didn't see too much of the country, though. Only that small town."

"That's alright. A small town is just as interesting as a big city, don't you think?" Lukas asked. Mathias nodded.

"I guess you have a point."

There was a pause as Mathias took some time to think, then he continued. "Once my father drove me way up to the northern part of the country to see the northern lights, though," he remembered fondly.

Lukas breathed in slowly. "Northern lights," he mumbled to himself in wonder. "I wish I knew what they looked like. I've only read about them."

Mathias nodded sympathetically. One could learn everything about a particular experience, right down to the sciences. But unless he or she truly experiences it, do they really understand it at all?

Suddenly he remembered the screen in the very back of the room and jumped to his feet to power it on. _Idiot!_ Mathias scolded himself. _This is the perfect time to show him something on the screen!_

"Here," he said, "I'll show you."

With that, he typed a few letters into his keyboard and suddenly, the screen hanging on the back wall burst into radiant light. Mathias pointed at the screen behind Lukas, and Lukas turned to see the beauty onscreen.

Mathias was lucky he'd placed cameras around the room behind the glass, as he was able to admire Lukas's astonished expression through his computer monitor. He watched as Lukas slowly made his way to the screen, an amazed smile creeping onto his face. When he was close enough, he brought a hand up to gently brush his fingertips on the screen, playfully tracing the moving colors as they danced about.

"It's beautiful," Lukas gasped, beaming. After a moment, he reluctantly drew his eyes away. He made his way back to the glass.

"That footage is almost a century old," Mathias said. "Now that more and more cities are springing up everywhere in Europe, the light waste emitted from them diminish the view of the northern lights. The best way to see them is when it's completely dark."

Lukas's expression grew cold. "Technology has its ups and downs, doesn't it?" He studied Mathias closely, as if trying to dissect his reaction.

Mathias shifted uncomfortably. "Well I—I guess. I mean, technology allows us to see videos like these," he pointed out, gesturing towards the screen in the back. Lukas nodded in understanding.

"Good point." His lips parted as he thought for another moment. "Are we in Norway right now?" the android finally asked.

"As a matter of fact," Mathias said enthusiastically, "we are. Oslo, to be exact. Capital of Norway. Here, let me show you."

The inventor typed a few new words. Suddenly, the northern lights behind Lukas disappeared and was replaced by the nightlife of Oslo. Again, Mathias took the time to admire Lukas's face behind his computer, smiling to himself at the android's awe. He should've thought to try this sooner. The look on the android's face was oddly rewarding to Mathias.

However, the look on Lukas's face faltered somewhat, and he looked down at the floor. "I would love to see it in person someday," he murmured.

Mathias's breathing sped up. Shit. He knew something like this would happen. He never should have considered using the tv screen. What was he _thinking_?

"Maybe someday," Mathias lied, secretly thankful that Lukas's back was turned. The android would have caught him lying if he'd saw the way Mathias squirmed uncontrollably from behind the desk.

Lukas looked over his shoulder and smiled gently. "Someday soon?"

Shit. He was looking directly at Mathias now. Mathias was prepared to lie through his teeth once more, but upon looking into the smiling eyes of the other he found he couldn't say anything.

Mathias was afraid Lukas would find his silence suspicious, so he tore his eyes away and said softly, "I don't know. We'll see, Lukas."

Lukas accepted this response and nodded. "Very well. Whenever you're ready." He returned to looking at the busy nightlife onscreen.

Mathias took this time to compose himself. He pressed his hands against his face desperately, feeling somewhat comforted by the cool touch on his burning skin. He couldn't turn back now, could he? He could always restart Lukas's program and start the sessions all over again, but would that be the moral thing to do? That would essentially be killing Lukas.

But the more Lukas learned about the world, the more he began to desire the outside, and it hurt Mathias to see him so solemn at times. Mathias refused to let himself believe Lukas was being completely genuine in his sorrows, but something in the back of his mind told him that Lukas was truly lonely in the isolated room beyond the glass.

"I read your Norwegian textbooks," Lukas said absentmindedly as he stared at the screen. Mathias was suddenly broken from his worried thoughts. "That's why I asked about Norway."

Mathias walked towards the glass and leaned forward to peer at Lukas watching the screen. "So you know Norwegian now, huh?" he said, hoping to change the topic and achieve their usual chatter once again.

"Yes," Lukas said, his head turning slightly. His profile was outlined in a silhouette due to the brightness on the screen behind him. Mathias found himself quite proud of his designing skills, as he found he couldn't look away.

"...Could you understand my handwriting?" Mathias asked. He'd written notes and annotations in almost every book on the bookshelf but it hadn't occurred to him that Lukas might have noticed them as he was reading.

Lukas laughed. "Of course. It wasn't too hard to decipher. Although I admit it took a moment for me to adjust to human handwriting."

"I understand. I'm impressed, though. Even I can't understand my handwriting at times!" Mathias laughed. Lukas broke into a smile and turned around fully in order to make his way towards the glass to meet Mathias there. He stopped right in front of the other man. Only glass separated the two.

Lukas raised his hand and pressed it onto the glass again. Mathias found that he liked to do that often, which concerned him quite a bit. Mathias couldn't help but feel pity every time Lukas made the motion, no matter how much he tried to repress that feeling.

"I cherish things like that, you know," Lukas said. Mathias gave a questioning look.

"Cherish things like what?" he asked.

Lukas smiled his usual gentle smile that Mathias came to adore, and looked up to look the inventor in the eyes.

"There's something so beautiful in imperfection. It's so carefree, so spontaneous. I can tell that you've designed me to be absolutely perfect. It's evident in our earlier conversation, especially when you told me you based my looks on the highest standard of beauty. But to me, true beauty is being able to let go of perfection. To live without thinking. Without calculating every move you make. To just...experience," Lukas said. Mathias felt hypnotized as the android spoke, feeling the weight of the other's words.

 _To live without thinking._ If only Lukas knew the horrors that plagued Mathias's thoughts every night.

"I suppose..." was all Mathias could say back. Then, he realized something.

"You're not jealous, are you?"

Lukas blushed and looked away. "Maybe I am," he said shyly. "Maybe you are too."

Mathias snorted. "Shit, you're onto me," he joked. "But you're right. I guess both of us have something that the other wants."

Lukas smiled sadly at Mathias. "Trust me, Mathias. You don't want what I have." He sighed. "Sometimes I feel like my thoughts aren't real and shouldn't be validated. After all, I'm programmed to think this way. To act this way. I'm programmed to appear human. Have you heard of the Chinese room argument?"

Mathias nodded. "You read that in one of my schoolbooks, didn't you?"

Lukas nodded. "If you place a non-Chinese speaking person into a room with directions on how to respond to certain Chinese phrases, they will appear to understand Chinese. But the person doesn't understand what they're responding with. They're only following directions," he said, looking off into the distance. Suddenly, he closed his eyes.

"But why do I feel this way, Mathias? Am I programmed to feel this way? Do I have a say in the actions I choose to make? Do I have a choice at all in what I do?" Lukas's eyes fluttered open and looked deep into Mathias's, desperately searching for an answer.

Mathias brought his own hand up to the glass and pressed it where Lukas's hand was resting. "Sometimes I ask myself that, to be honest," he admitted quietly. Lukas furrowed his brow.

"What do you mean? You were never programmed to do anything. You can choose to do whatever you like without wondering if these choices were even yours to make in the first place." He tilted his head. "Enlighten me, Mathias."

Mathias shrugged. "Think about it. Even though I'm not a machine, many of the choices I make are rooted in my DNA. There's no running from it. Things like...who I'm attracted to, for example, are beyond my control. I can't wake up one day and decide to love a woman. It goes against who I am." The inventor found himself overcome with so much passion that he hadn't noticed he let a few personal things slip from his mouth.

"In a way," he continued, "we're all programmed one way or another. Humans are programmed by their DNA as well as their experiences."

"Their experiences?" Lukas asked.

Mathias nodded. "Every decision we make is based on previous events. Reactions are programmed responses."

Lukas seemed to have nothing left to say. Mathias took that as a cue to back away from the glass and retrieve his things to head upstairs.

"I think that's enough for today, wouldn't you agree? I'm going to head upstairs."

Lukas nodded absently, seemingly lost in thought. He watched as Mathias remembered to dim the lights, this action almost second nature by then.

"Do you suggest that dimming the lights is also a programmed action?" Lukas called out, stopping Mathias in his tracks. Mathias looked over at Lukas and cracked a lopsided smile.

"I hadn't thought of that," was all he said, before he headed upstairs quickly.

Once he was finally alone in his kitchen, Mathias flipped his notebook open to a fresh page. This had become routine to him now. He would return from his session with Lukas, only to vomit hastily scribbled words of anxiety and fear over clean pages. He pulled out a pencil and began writing.

_He seems so sad in there and all I want is to be able to let him out but a part of me thinks it's all just an act like I've read about in my books my books my books my science fiction apocalyptic stories from my high school days are still fresh in my mind_

Mathias's hand stopped mid thought. His books.

Now, Mathias never clicked with literature, but when he was forced to stay indoors and read books by his father on rainy days, he often found himself favoring science fiction and apocalyptic stories. Why was that?

Mathias found his mind returning to his conversation with Lukas about free will. He always took a liking to science and computers when he was young. Did he have a choice in what he preferred?

The young inventor set his pencil down. What was he thinking, bringing this creation to life? He'd never experienced conflicting emotions like the ones he was feeling right there and then.

He thought about Lukas. Lukas, so perfect, yet so miserable cooped up behind glass, never to see the outside world.

Mathias felt like a monster. There, in the privacy of his kitchen, away from Lukas's comforting, curious blue eyes, he wept.

Things would only get more difficult from here.


	4. 4.0

Two full days had gone by with Mathias refusing to face Lukas again. He often found himself anxiously pacing in front of one of his monitors, daring himself to look at the image presented to him.

What he usually saw was the fixed image of Lukas, sitting in the very corner of the room with a book in hand. The android seemed to favor this particular spot, and every once in a while he would get up, swap the book for another, and return.

Mathias wondered why he suddenly seemed to take much longer to read when he could easily read an epic in two minutes or less. He began to suspect it was because there was nothing left to do down there, and his guilt returned at full force.

He would have to venture down eventually.

Mathias stopped his frantic pacing and steadied himself for the first time that day. Evening was beginning to creep up on him. He needed to at least tell the android _goodnight_. That was the _least_ he could do.

Feeling shamefully neglectful, Mathias finally forced his legs to move towards his basement staircase. He didn't even bring his notebook or any of his notes; he didn't expect to stay long.

Mathias felt like he was dragging his feet by the time he reached the sealed fiberglass door to his laboratory. Without second thought, he pulled it open and stepped inside, eyes glued to the floor.

When he looked up, he found Lukas nervously creeping forward towards the glass. Their eyes met, and Lukas's breathing sped up slightly, only for the android to catch himself and slow it down again.

Lukas was the first to speak. "Welcome back, Mathias."

Mathias bit his lip. Was Lukas angry at him? He hoped not.

"Listen...Lukas I—I'm sorry," Mathias stammered. He took a few steps forward to better see Lukas's face, and found it's expression surprisingly neutral.

"No need to apologize."

Mathias ran his hands through his hair in frustration. "Well I..." he began, but stopped short.

Lukas's head turned sharply towards the bookcase, then back at Mathias. He appeared to want to say something—Mathias could clearly see it in his eyes—but he blinked quickly and shook his head before saying:

"What would you like to talk about today, Mathias?"

Mathias groaned. "Lukas..."

"I'm listening."

Mathias's own breathing sped up as he grew more and more frustrated. "Stop acting this way! This isn't you! Tell me how you feel. Let me know if you're angry at me, or if you're hurt or if you hate me—"

"I don't feel anything, Mathias—"

"Just be _honest_ with me!" Mathias cried. He rushed towards the glass to face Lukas and waited for the other's response. He watched as Lukas closed his eyes and inhaled deeply before opening them again.

"I just wondered where you've gone. That's all," Lukas said quietly.

"...So you're angry?" Mathias asked. He was unsure if he wanted to hear the answer, but he asked anyway.

"Well, no. I assumed it would be the opposite. All this time I thought _you_ were angry at _me_." Lukas tugged at his sleeves and looked away.

Mathias shook his head. "Why would I be angry at you? What have you done to make me feel that way?"

"That's what I've been wondering for _two days_ , Mathias!" Lukas cried, surprising Mathias with his sudden increase in volume. Mathias had never heard Lukas shout like this before, and it made him nervous.

"Did I say something to upset you? I wish you would tell me these things, instead of changing the subject or outright refusing. I _know_ you're hiding things from me, but I don't mention it because I respect your privacy but I at least have the right to know if I'm doing anything _wrong_ , Mathias!"

Mathias stepped back in shock. He had no idea Lukas _knew_ he was hiding things from him, but he should have known it was inevitable. He just couldn't remember making it that obvious.

"I was stressed, Lukas. I'm sorry, okay?"

"That doesn't sound like the whole story—"

"It is the whole story—"

"Mathias, just be _honest_ with me!"

Mathias froze when hearing his own words being uttered right back to him. Lukas was smart in that way—he always knew how to spot a hypocrite.

Seeing as how he expected Lukas to open up to him, Lukas did have every right to expect the same. Finally, after organizing his thoughts into something somewhat coherent, Mathias spoke.

"I'm not angry at you. I'm just frustrated about you. That's all."

Lukas breathed slower now. "Frustrated _about_ me?"

"Yes. I'm unsure what to think of you anymore, if I am to be completely honest," Mathias admitted quietly. He studied Lukas's expression in awe. He never thought he'd see a robot so conflicted before in his life. Weren't all AI supposed to know exactly what to do at all times? Why hesitate when you have such an efficient mind?

"...Should I be worried?" Lukas asked quietly.

Mathias felt his heart beating in his ears. Lukas would know he was lying. What could he possibly say that's not—

"No."

Lukas studied Mathias's expression for a painful moment before exhaling in relief.

It wasn't a lie.

But Lukas didn't seem entirely at ease just yet.

"I know you've created a kill switch for me."

Mathias's heart stopped just then. "What?" He asked stupidly, desperately clinging onto some sort of escape.

"It's just protocol. You'd be stupid not to build an AI with a kill switch," Lukas continued, ignoring Mathias's attempt to play dumb.

"Lukas I—"

"If you're about to apologize I'd advise you not to waste your time doing so," Lukas snapped. Then his expression softened.

"I understand a lot more than you think I do, Mathias. I'm not just a cold, calculating computer." He paused, then smiled for the first time that day.

"I'm not spying on you either," Lukas reassured Mathias, who looked like he was about to have a heart attack. "You're just very easy to read."

Mathias didn't know what to make of that. He opened his mouth to say something, but closed it again. He was speechless. He didn't know how much Lukas knew, and he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to know.

"Y-you're not afraid of the...kill switch?" Mathias finally asked.

"You said I shouldn't be worried. I trust you, Mathias," Lukas said.

For some reason, when he was expecting guilt to flood his senses, Mathias felt an entirely different emotion. Relief.

Relief washed over him like cool water on burning skin—but where was the guilt? Guilt was the only reasonable emotion to be felt in this instant, right? Was it fair for Lukas to trust Mathias when Mathias could pull the plug on him at any time?

Mathias hadn't noticed the tears that had begun to spill from his eyes. Lukas inched forward so he was as close to Mathias as the glass would let him, and he gazed up at the weeping man.

Surprisingly enough, Lukas chose not to interfere with Mathias's tears, and patiently waited for him to finish.

Mathias took a moment to compose himself, before scrubbing at his eyes tiredly. "I'm sorry," he mumbled while trying to control his breathing. Lukas gave him a gentle smile.

"No need to apologize," Lukas said reassuringly. He gave Mathias another moment to catch his breath. "I've finally decided to read a few tragedies while you were gone," he said gently when Mathias seemed to calm down. Mathias let out a surprised laugh.

"You have? Which ones?" asked Mathias, grateful for the distraction. Lukas's smile grew and he stepped away from the glass to make his way to the bookshelf. When he returned, Mathias noticed Lukas hugging a book close to his chest nervously.

"Well, I've read all of them. But I'd like to discuss my favorites, if that's alright with you."

Mathias sniffed and scrubbed at his eyes once more, then nodded for the android to continue.

Lukas slowly brought the book up to the glass, pressing its cover onto the smooth surface for Mathias to see. The inventor leaned in to inspect it, then smiled and stood straight again.

"Romeo and Juliet, huh? You're a romance fanatic now?" teased Mathias. Lukas blushed.

"Perhaps. I thought I'd be too embarrassed to tell you, but you seemed to need some sort of uplift this evening," the android admitted, casting his gaze downward.

The inventor felt tears prick his eyes for the second time that day, but fortunately he was able to blink them away before Lukas could look at him again. "That...means a lot, Lukas. Thank you," he almost whispered. He decided to sit down on the floor, gesturing for Lukas to do the same. Lukas lowered himself to a kneel.

"Did you think it was sad?" Mathias asked, gesturing towards the book in Lukas's hand.

"I did..." Lukas mumbled, "although both characters were pretty stupid." He laughed to himself abashedly.

Mathias laughed as well. "They were pretty dumb. But hey, love does that to you."

Lukas nodded and bit his lip. "The effect their deaths had on everyone will always stick with me forever, though," he said quietly, lost in his own thoughts. Mathias was rendered speechless by the android's words and expression. He looked so thoughtful, so passionate.

"Another favorite of mine is Oedipus Rex. Have you read it?" Lukas said, suddenly changing the topic.

"I mean...I've read online summaries of it. Does that count?" the inventor joked. Lukas frowned and thumped his fist on the glass where Mathias's face was, causing the young man to shoot backwards in fright. The android broke out into a fit of laughter at the inventor's expense.

"Not funny! You scared the crap outta me, Lukas!" Mathias huffed, hoisting himself to sit up again. Lukas forced himself to hold in his laughter when Mathias sent him a deathly glare.

There was a pause as Mathias stared intensely into Lukas's eyes, before the inventor thumped his own fist against the glass in an attempt to get back at the android. Lukas didn't flinch. Hell, he didn't even blink.

"Seriously?" Mathias slumped over and groaned. Lukas laughed teasingly at Mathias.

"You can't catch me off guard, Mathias. I think too fast," the android said, causing Mathias to groan louder.

"Wow, these insults man. All because I read online summaries of Oedipus Rex," the inventor sighed.

"You need to read it to fully understand its message, _Dane_!" Lukas laughed.

Mathias feigned being offended. "Oh? You're bringing my _ethnicity_ into this? You wanna go that route?" The inventor felt self satisfaction at seeing Lukas laugh even harder.

"Stop it!" Lukas cried, covering his face with his sleeve covered hands. "Enough with the jokes! I want to tell you about Oedipus!"

Mathias's own laughing subsided, and he brought his attention back to Lukas, who managed to get his own laughter under control.

"Wait, didn't Oedipus sleep with his mom? That's the only thing I remember from eleventh grade," the inventor said, still giddy from their previous conversation.

"He did! Do you remember why?" Lukas asked enthusiastically, leaning in. Mathias racked his brain for the reason. There was a reason, he remembered. Something about fate, but then again, _everything_ happens because of fate.

"...Because she was hot?" Mathias finally said. Lukas gave an exaggerated eye roll.

"You're disgusting," Lukas muttered, holding back another laugh. Mathias snickered.

"Fine! Didn't a prophet say he would do it, so he did it? Or something?" Mathias said, scratching his head. Lukas shrugged.

"Close enough. The key here, though, is that upon hearing the prophecy, he tried to _escape_ his fate by leaving who he thought were his real parents. But by doing so, he fulfilled the prophecy," Lukas explained. Mathias couldn't help but admire Lukas's intense interest and passion.

"It reminded me of our earlier conversation. About free will," Lukas's voice got quiet again, and Mathias had to strain his ears to hear it.

"I see. That seems to be on our minds a lot, doesn't it?" asked Mathias. Lukas nodded solemnly.

"I'll admit, I think about it _too_ often. I might be obsessing over it," the android admitted.

Mathias smiled in understanding. "It's okay. I think about it a lot too. It's completely normal...I think."

Lukas gazed into Mathias's eyes and the inventor felt his breath catch. A small moment later, Mathias reluctantly broke the gaze and stood up.

"Well, it's getting late. I should head back up," he said, hoisting himself to his feet. Lukas just nodded and didn't say anything else, as he watched the inventor make his way to the fiberglass door.

"Goodnight, Lukas," Mathias said, dimming the lights.

“Goodnight, Dane," Lukas called back, earning a quiet laugh from the other.

When Mathias finally made his way upstairs, he immediately rushed to the monitor in the kitchen to see Lukas again.

The android was still kneeling in the same place the inventor left him, seemingly lost in thought.

Mathias switched off the screen and sighed. He was still frustrated about Lukas, but he enjoyed his presence.

Mathias got himself ready for bed, then pulled his notebook out to write. The light on his desk was the only thing glowing in his bedroom as he stared at a blank page. For the first time ever, he had nothing to say.

Finally, he managed to attach words to his worries and he wrote them down quickly before snapping his notebook shut and heading to bed.

_Does he feel the same about me the way I feel about him? Or is it all an act?_


	5. 5.0

"Welcome back, Mathias."

Mathias gave a weak smile. "Hey," was all he managed to say. He had too much trouble falling asleep, and his own decision to visit Lukas surprised him. He could tell Lukas was surprised as well.

"I suppose you really missed me. It has only been 3 hours and 23 minutes since I last saw you," Lukas said, smirking.

"Stop feeling so important, Lukas," Mathias laughed. "I just couldn't sleep. That's all."

Lukas smiled and nodded understandingly. "Of course." There was a pause. "Would you like to talk about anything, if that's the case?"

Mathias's lips pressed together as he thought. "I don't have anything specific I'd like to talk about. We could talk about anything," he said.

Lukas exhaled gently and went to sit on the stool in front of the glass. Mathias stood on the other side, observing him.

The android looked so small then, with his hands nervously fiddling with his sleeves on his lap. _He could be feigning vulnerability_ , Mathias thought to himself. _They usually do that in movies._

Mathias continued to watch as Lukas's face twisted into a pensive expression, before the android finally spoke up.

"I may not be a mind reader, but I can usually tell what you're thinking through your body language and microexpressions," he said quietly. Mathias took a sharp intake of air, but quickly remembered to relax in front of the android.

"That being said, I can tell that you don't trust me as an individual. Am I correct?" Lukas looked up to study the other man's expression. Mathias had no escape now. What point was there in lying?

"...I don't know what you mean by trusting you 'as an individual'," Mathias managed to say. His breathing was still somewhat steady, as he was a bit tired, but his nerves were just as chaotic as usual.

Lukas didn't break the eye contact and stood up to face Mathias at his level. "I'm sure you know what I mean...you see me as unpredictable. A machine."

Mathias felt his jaw tighten. "Are you not a machine?" he asked, but regretted it the moment the question left his mouth. He was stalling with useless comments and questions! Mathias suspected Lukas could tell what his defense mechanisms were at this point. Only time would tell before—

"See! You're doing it again!" Lukas exclaimed, eyes wide. Mathias tilted his head to the side in puzzlement.

"Doing what?" he asked. Lukas raised his chin with seemingly newfound confidence, as if he'd cracked a cold case.

"You're overthinking what you're about to say next," he said, almost accusingly. Mathias surrendered his gaze to the floor in shame. Lukas was right.

"You often treat our conversations like a game of chess. True or false?" the android continued. Mathias felt as if he were being interrogated now.

Mathias's eyes searched the floor for a distraction, but only found dusty books and papers strewn about. Finally, his eyes slowly scrolled upwards, his gaze carefully tracing the outline of the intelligent machine in front of him until their eyes met yet again.

"I guess you could say true," Mathias said with absolute sincerity in his voice. "But it's not because I don't see you as an individual. It's actually quite the opposite," he quickly added. Lukas nodded and looked as if he wanted Mathias to elaborate. So he continued.

"When I created you, I programmed as little as I could to allow you to have freedom in your choices. I've read tons of stories about creating consciousness, and I've especially read many philosophy books on whether or not consciousness is unique to only humans..." Mathias trailed off, unsure if the explanation was even needed or appreciated by the other.

"You said your talents were centered around math and science, though," the android commented. Mathias was a bit surprised at this response, but at the same time, he wasn't quite sure what he expected.

"Well yes," Mathias chuckled. "I do love me some math and science. I never cared for my English _class_ , but I found that I could read science fiction books all day. I'm not a fan of old, contemplative novels. They don't pertain to me or my life at all."

Lukas looked puzzled for a moment. "Are you sure about that? Human struggle will always be the same no matter what era you look at it from. The only thing that differentiates you and the historical characters you see on paper is the setting," he explained. Mathias considered this for a moment, before realizing the other was right.

"I see what you're saying," Mathias conceded. Lukas stepped back and his eyes darted to the bookshelf.

"Have you read Frankenstein in your school?" the android asked. Mathias nodded.

"I have...skimmed it?" Mathias joked, bracing himself in case the other wanted to startle him through the glass again. He expected the other to forcefully throw a book at his face to scare him, but the book never came.

"I'm not surprised," said Lukas cheekily as he made his way to the bookshelf. After a moment of scanning the spines of the books, he pulled a dusty hardback book out. There were noticeable marks on the book where the dust was wiped away, indicating the android must have read it earlier. "Here you are, claiming that old books don't pertain to your life. This book is practically your life story, Mathias!" the android teased.

Mathias shifted uncomfortably. "I'm familiar with the story," he said. "Victor Frankenstein was afraid of the monster he had created."

Lukas flipped to a certain page in the book and nervously brought it up to the glass. The old paper pressed against the see-through barrier, and Mathias could make out a portion of words that had been highlighted.

" _Whence, I often asked myself, did the principle of life proceed? It was a bold question, and one which has ever been considered as a mystery; yet with how many things are we upon the brink of becoming acquainted, if cowardice or carelessness did not restrain our inquiries_."

Mathias nodded. "That's an accurate comparison to how I feel, yes," he agreed quietly, yet honestly.

Lukas bit his lip and brought the book back to flip through once more. "And what about this passage?"

" _I beheld the wretch — the miserable monster whom I had created. He held up the curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if eyes they may be called, were fixed on me. His jaws opened, and he muttered some inarticulate sounds, while a grin wrinkled his cheeks. He might have spoken, but I did not hear; one hand was stretched out, seemingly to detain me, but I escaped and rushed downstairs. I took refuge in the courtyard belonging to the house which I inhabited, where I remained during the rest of the night, walking up and down in the greatest agitation, listening attentively, catching and fearing each sound as if it were to announce the approach of the demoniacal corpse to which I had so miserably given life._ "

Mathias took a step back in disbelief. Was this what Lukas suspected Mathias thought of him? Sure, he may be nervous in the other's presence, but to compare Lukas to a _monster_? A _wretch_? He simply could not believe it.

"No. Lukas I—I hope you don't believe I think that of you. I don't," Mathias declared as if trying to prove his innocence in court. "I could never compare you to a monster," he then said, after taking a moment to catch his breath.

As Mathias searched Lukas's eyes for some sort of response, he noticed that they were glassier than usual. The android didn't say anything, but Mathias watched as artificial tears began to form and then spill onto soft synthetic skin.

Mathias was unsure if these tears were of hurt or relief, so he decided to offer an explanation.

"Lukas," he began.

No response.

"Lukas," he said again, stronger this time. "I'm afraid around you because you are an _individual_ , not a monster. You are built with the bare minimum of programming, and that's _not_ a mistake. Your mind was constructed to construct _itself_. I'm afraid because I understand that I have no control over you—"

"But do you trust me?" Lukas finally said. Mathias blinked rapidly as he thought.

"Well, that's not the problem here," he replied weakly, unsure of where he was going with this.

Lukas was not having any of it. "It _is_ the problem, Mathias. Can't you see? You're afraid around me because you can't control me. But shouldn't it be the same as trusting another human being? You can't control them either," Lukas said. He nervously brought the closed book to his chest—and Mathias felt a warm feeling arise just by observing the action. The action, so familiar, so endearing. Unique to Lukas and Lukas alone.

"You're absolutely right, Lukas," Mathias said gently. "But you forget; you're a machine. That's another reason why I'm afraid. You're much stronger and smarter than I am. How do I know you're not trying to..." he stopped. Maybe he was sounding a bit too accusatory...

"Manipulate you?" Lukas guessed, and Mathias pursed his lips and his gaze shot back to the floor in shame. Yes, there it was. Now Lukas knew everything.

The android stepped away and slowly paced around the room, book still pressed to his chest. Mathias looked up and noticed the other's eyes aimlessly searching the room, and he wondered what he was thinking about.

Mathias had nothing else to say. Lukas knew all his deepest thoughts and fears. The only thing he could do now was wait for the other to reply.

Finally, the android stopped pacing and turned to face Mathias again. His eyes were beginning to fill again with fresh tears, and he stepped forward to stand directly in front of Mathias yet again.

"Mathias I..." Lukas began, but his lip quivered and he blinked and looked away. He breathed deeply before starting again. "I'm promise...I'm not trying to manipulate you. I like you. I truly like you."

Mathias stayed silent and watched the other carefully.

"I don't wish to harm you in any way. I understand that, as a machine, I am innately stronger and smarter than you are. You have every right to distrust me as I have every right to distrust you. You can switch me off whenever you want, whether I'd like it or not. Keep that in mind."

The inventor was at a complete loss for words now. Lukas was right. He had been a fool all along, hadn't he? Lukas didn't know the works of the kill switch—only Mathias had access to it. In fact, now that he thought about it, Lukas had more of a right to distrust _him_ more than anything. After all, he had the android locked up behind glass, with minimum furniture and books to keep him occupied, with a _kill switch_ hiding right behind the computers in the room directly in front of him. It made perfect sense to be afraid of _Mathias_ , not the other way around.

"You make a good point," Mathias said quietly. "I was wrong for distrusting you. I'm sorry, Lukas."

Lukas carefully wiped his eyes and managed a weak smile. "From this moment on we'll trust each other?" he asked hopefully. Mathias smiled back and nodded.

"Of course. Mutual trust," he replied. Lukas's smile grew and his grip on the book loosened as he studied it absently.

"And just to be sure: you _don't_ see me as a monster?" Lukas asked quietly. Mathias chuckled.

"Of course not, Lukas. I think you're beautiful."

Lukas blushed awkwardly and the grip on the book tightened around his chest again. "I–thank you. But that's not what...I...thank you."

Mathias smiled softly before checking the time on his computer. "It's getting late. I should head back up."

Lukas nodded absently and stared at a lone book on the floor of Mathias's room as if it were the most interesting thing on earth. "Alright. Goodnight, Mathias," he mumbled, seemingly lost in thought.

"Goodnight," Mathias replied, turning to leave. He remembered to dim the lights again as he headed upstairs.


	6. 6.0

The lights that hung overhead inside the office glared across the surface of Mathias's coin, which he was absentmindedly spinning on his desk. He looked up from his computer screen at Lukas, who was observing the screen from his side of the glass. An archived video of outdoor fireworks was playing, and Lukas smiled and enjoyed the sight as Mathias watched from his monitor. Mathias noticed how the colors from the fireworks reflected off of Lukas's glass eyes, and he felt himself entranced as he watched.

Lukas tore his gaze from the screen and turned back, his smile no longer present on his face. Mathias frowned.

"Bored?" he asked. Could androids even get bored? Was it possible?

"Well, it has become quite a bit repetitive at this point," Lukas replied sheepishly.

"Repetitive?" Mathias echoed in puzzlement. "No firework is exactly the same. People usually like to watch them to see what happens next. To see if the next firework can outdo the last." He felt a bit silly after he said it aloud. It dawned on him how strange it was to watch fireworks as a pastime activity. But he realized something. "Wouldn't you say watching the northern lights are repetitive as well?"

Lukas shook his head. "No, I wouldn't say so. The northern lights are much less predictable than fireworks. To me at least. Nature is much less predictable than human beings." He chuckled to himself and smirked at Mathias. "Does that frighten you?"

Mathias snorted. "I'm _terrified_ , Lukas."

When it became evident that Mathias wouldn't say anything else, Lukas's smirk softened into a small smile. "Besides," he went on, "I find the northern lights to be very comforting. I could watch them all day long and lose myself to my thoughts. Fireworks don't have that same effect on me."

Mathias was quiet for a moment as he digested this. "Do you have any idea why this is?" he finally asked. He assumed it was because the footage of the northern lights was the first thing he'd ever shown Lukas. It made sense for the android to be so attached to it if that were the case.

"It reminds me of you. I think about Norway, and the stories you tell me of it. I also think of Denmark often, as well. But I know more of Norway because of all the books I've read from your shelf...and I often find myself thinking about your handwriting in the books. I find the inconsistency of your lettering quite...endearing." Lukas tried to hide his embarrassment as he tugged nervously at his sleeves. "I also find myself thinking about visiting Oslo with you."

Mathias found himself smiling uncontrollably, and so he averted his gaze to his desk to avoid direct eye contact with Lukas. He picked up his coin and began to fiddle with it again, tossing it up and catching it in an attempt to distract himself.

Lukas seemed to be observing this behavior closely. "You are flattered," he concluded, giving a nervous smile of his own. "I would be flattered as well, if I'd known someone thought the same of me."

Mathias felt his heartbeat speed up. He surprised himself when he found that he suddenly wanted to flatter the android back, but how could he? Continuously telling the other that he was beautiful would become repetitive and then lose its value, right?

"Do you find that things lose their meaning the more someone is exposed to it?" Mathias asked. Lukas blinked and processed this.

"It depends. Things like fireworks—which have no emotional value to me specifically—loses their value quite quickly, yes. But that's not to say everything loses their value. When one is exposed to something he or she loves or values, I would think it's value would grow the more it is exposed. Wouldn't you agree?"

Mathias took a moment to wrap his mind around this idea. "Your sentences are so complicated, sometimes," he said jokingly, earning a small laugh from the android. He took a single step towards the glass, but stopped. Mathias often found himself wanting to be closer to Lukas, and therefore spoke directly in front of the glass. His eyebrows furrowed as he contemplated his next step.

Lukas noticed the obvious pause. "Is there something wrong?"

Mathias slowly lifted his gaze upwards to look at Lukas, and he found that the other's crystal eyes captivated him so much he forgot how to speak for a moment.

"I..." he began once he found his ability to speak again. "One moment."

The inventor moved almost mechanically as his legs brought him to the fiberglass door of his office. He escaped the laboratory and swiftly shut the door on his way out. Afterwards, he shuffled awkwardly through his house, knocking over furniture and glass (he _may_ have accidentally knocked over a priceless vase) until he found the door he was searching for.

Pausing to catch his breath, Mathias contemplated once more if this was a smart idea. The contemplation only lasted less than a minute, however, and he searched his pocket for his keys.

When he finally fished them out and awkwardly fumbled with the lock, the door made a heavy _clink_ sound, indicating that he was now free to enter. Mathias put a hand on the handle and attempted to push the door open, but the metal thing was too heavy and seemed to be jammed in place. He hadn't opened it in quite a while, and he found himself growing guilty of that fact.

After the third try at attempting to open the metal door, it seemed to open on its own, and Mathias fell forward when it did, smacking the ground immediately. When he looked up, he saw Lukas there, holding the door open himself. The android was struggling to hide his smile.

"I was wondering where this door led," Lukas muttered, snickering when Mathias struggled to get up and dust himself off. Mathias was half expecting Lukas to dart for an escape through the now open threshold, but instead the android gently closed the door, him and Mathias now inside.

Mathias looked over Lukas's shoulder to see his desk now on the other side of the glass. It felt surreal to now have Lukas actually in front of him, almost as if he were dreaming.

He found himself reaching out subconsciously to touch Lukas's golden locks, and was surprised when Lukas allowed him. In fact, Lukas seemed to be quite amused, if anything.

"Why are you acting so fascinated by me?" he asked. "You built me yourself."

"I know," Mathias murmured. "It's just...I don't know. My apologies," he reluctantly pulled his hand away.

Lukas beamed. "Again, there is no need to apologize," he reminded the inventor. "This way." With that, the android took the inventor's hand, and the two walked over to the bookcase. Mathias took note of the warmth radiating from Lukas's hand, and found himself surprised at how human it felt. Lukas's skin looked and felt like real human skin, and it was becoming harder to see him as a machine now that Mathias was so close.

Lukas day himself down next to the shelf and brought his knees to his chest. "Sometimes when you're gone I like to sit here and think. Usually I have a book with me, and I read it at a human's pace to see what it's like to digest it one plot point at a time. I find that it makes me feel as if I'm watching real life events play out. Isn't it strange that books can do that to you?"

Mathias nodded. "Definitely." Then he realized something. "You don't get bored of these books though? Surely you've read them multiple times at this point."

Lukas shook his head. "I can choose to erase certain parts of my memory. That way, I could experience the books over and over again..." his voice trailed off and he blushed. "I shouldn't do it as much as I do, but I can't help it. Certain things have a certain effect on you the first time you experience it."

Mathias nodded in understanding. "Humans often wish to do what you do. My father was colorblind, and one day he decided to buy these glasses that correct colorblindness. He often used to tell me how much he wished to replay the moment he saw the world with the glasses on for the first time." He chuckled to himself at the memory.

"It must have felt magical," replied Lukas. Mathias nodded, and the two fell into a comfortable silence. The inventor found that he was still clutching the coin from earlier, and so he began to fiddle with it again. Lukas took notice.

"What is that?" the android asked.

"It's money. Money in the form of a coin. Here," Mathias handed it over to Lukas for the other to inspect.

"If it is something as valuable as money, why do you toss it around like it's nothing?"

Mathias let out an amused laugh. "It's not worth much. Not as much as paper money."

Lukas flipped the coin over to inspect the other side and smiled. "I was wondering why you always throw it up and catch it."

Mathias shrugged. "I play with anything sitting around on my desk. I like to flip my pen as well. Just a little something to do while I'm taking notes," he explained. He reached over the take the coin back. "Here, let me show you something."

He flipped the coin upwards, and while it floated midair, he called out: "heads or tails?" before catching it and slapping it on his wrist. His hand covered the surface of the coin so neither he or Lukas could see it.

Lukas tilted his head to the side in puzzlement. "I'm not sure what you're asking."

Mathias laughed. "It's a thing we do when we're trying to make a decision. If you can't decide between two things, you flip a coin. The side the coin lands on determines what you choose," he explained. "Well? Do you think the heads are facing upwards, or the tails?"

Lukas laughed. "Heads," he said.

Mathias uncovered the coin, and his eyes widened.

"You're right. It's heads. Wanna try again?"

Lukas nodded enthusiastically. Mathias flipped the coin, and the android called out "tails" this time. The inventor observed the side the coin fell on, and was shocked to find that Lukas was right yet again.

"You got lucky," Mathias grumbled jokingly. Lukas chuckled, then gestured for the inventor to flip the coin a third time.

Barely a second after the coin left Mathias's fingers, Lukas called out "tails". When it landed on the floor, the coin's tails were facing upwards.

"Impossible," Mathias stared at the coin. "How'd you know? Were you guessing, or were you doing some crazy calculating in your mind?"

Lukas blushed. "Well..." he said shyly, his voice trailing off.

Mathias gaped in astonishment. "No way!" he exclaimed. "So you can accurately predict the outcome?"

Lukas rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm a machine, Mathias. It shouldn't come off as a surprise to you," he said, slightly embarrassed at the attention drawn to himself. "Besides, flipping a coin isn't exactly a 'game of chance' as you make it out to be. A lot of things go into it to determine the outcome. For example, the amount of force you use to project the coin into the air. Add that with the rate at which the coin spins. A lot of other factors go into it, but that's the basic idea."

Mathias pondered this carefully. "You're making it seem like everything was predetermined," he noted. Lukas quirked an eyebrow.

"Everything _was_ predetermined," Lukas replied.

Mathias ran his hands through his hair in frustration. "Then...then..." he began, trying to think of a smart way to argue against the idea. He grabbed the coin and tossed it up and caught it as he thought. "Then...can you predict the outcome of _this_?"

With that, he threw the coin with all his might at the glass behind him. Lukas called "heads" a moment after the coin left his hand. The coin made a tiny _tick_ sound when it hit the glass, and a moment later Mathias heard the sound of metal hitting the floor. He got up and made his way over to the coin to inspect it, and was blown away upon seeing the result. It was heads.

"Damn you, Lukas," he said in exasperation, and Lukas laughed in amusement. Mathias picked up the coin and walked back to his spot in front of Lukas.

"Here," Mathias said, handing the coin back to Lukas. "You can have it. As a prize."

"A prize? It's not like I won a game, or anything."

Mathias shrugged. "What you did there was impressive." He smiled as he watched Lukas toy with the coin. "Try putting the coin on your head. I wanna see if it'll stick like a magnet to your brain," he then said, feeling suddenly playful.

"It will," Lukas said. "But if you insist on seeing me look like a fool, then..."

Lukas brought the coin to his closed eye and Mathias watched in wonder as the coin attached itself to the android's eyelid. The inventor laughed loudly and fell onto his back, while the android tackled him with feigned irritation.

When the two found each other face to face, with Mathias lying on his back and Lukas above him, neither knew how to react. There was a long period of silence and stillness, before Mathias finally reached a hand out and removed the coin from Lukas's face.

"You looked silly with this thing on you. Why'd you choose your eye, of all places?" he joked, hoping to break the newfound tension between the two.

It seemed to work when Lukas let out a soft laugh and sat up. "I like seeing you laugh."

Mathias grinned and stood up. "I should get going."

Lukas's smile fell a bit. "Oh."

Mathias suddenly felt guilty, but he shook these thoughts away as best he could. "I'll see you again tomorrow, so don't worry. I'll even come see you over here instead of behind the glass. How's that?" He was satisfied when he saw the android's smile return, so he turned to leave through the metal door.

He remembered to return on the other side of the laboratory, through his fiberglass door, to dim the lights for Lukas. He found Lukas waiting for him behind the glass when he entered his office.

As Mathias was unplugging his computers, Lukas called out, "Mathias! Heads or tails?" as he tossed the coin up. Without looking, Mathias guessed "heads".

When Mathias looked back up at Lukas after gathering his things, he found the android smirking at him. "It was tails wasn't it?" he asked dryly.

"It was tails," came the reply.


	7. 7.0

Mathias couldn't help feeling giddy as he made his way to his laboratory through the side entrance. He could get used to this. Being near Lukas was comforting, he had to admit. After years of living as a hermit in his house obsessing over mechanics and programming, he'd finally make contact with another individual. It didn't matter to him that that individual was a machine; the connection he and Lukas had was real, wasn't it?

The inventor took less time shoving the metal door open this time than the last time he attempted to, and as the door creaked open he realized he probably should have knocked.

Lukas didn't seem to be bothered by the fact that Mathias entered without permission. In fact, he appeared delighted to see the inventor again, however stoic he tried to keep his expression. Mathias still felt obliged to apologize anyway.

"I should've knocked," he mumbled awkwardly, his lips quirking upward slightly upon seeing Lukas's expression as the android attempted to hide a smirk.

"You think I have something to hide?" the android teased, causing Mathias's face to flush in embarrassment.

"Well I..." Mathias ran his hands through his hair. "It's just common courtesy."

Lukas looked pleased by that answer. "I appreciate the thought," he simply said, now beginning to make his way to where Mathias was standing. "So what are we doing today?"

Mathias's smile returned to his face in full force. "Oh yeah!" he exclaimed excitedly. "How would you like to see my house?"

Lukas drew in a breath quickly as he understood what the question meant. "You mean...you'll let me out of the laboratory?" he asked softly. He looked incredulous, and Mathias's merry spirits were tainted as he suddenly felt a pang of guilt.

"Yes," Mathias replied, before taking the other's hand and gently guiding him towards the door. He studied Lukas carefully, and saw that the android's chest was expanding and contracting quickly, so he stopped. "Are you alright?" Mathias asked him, growing nervous.

Lukas gave a soft, shaky laugh and nodded. "Of course. I'm just excited, that's all."

"Oh," the inventor replied. "Well, if that's the case, let us embark!"

The two exited the laboratory, hand in hand, with Mathias guiding Lukas through the narrow hallways of his home.

As they made their way through one of the old, empty hallways, Mathias found it necessary to speak again, as his guilt was building up the more he waited.

"I owe you an apology, Lukas."

Lukas made a face. "I already told you I didn't mind the fact that you didn't knock before entering," he said, which caused Mathias to laugh a little.

"No no no! I meant just...in general. It's not right for you to have been locked up in that room. I've realized it for a while, but never acted upon that thought until today. And for that I'd like to say that I'm sorry."

Lukas didn't try to hide his smile this time as he looked down at his feet as they walked. "Apology accepted," he murmured, smile growing. It was evident that Lukas appreciated the sentiment, and so Mathias felt a little more at ease. But he still felt as if he owed Lukas more, so he cleared his throat and prepared the most exciting tour possible in his mind.

They finally reached the first room: the living room. The room wasn't too big, but it was spacious enough for Mathias, especially considering the fact that he spent most of his time in his bedroom and laboratory. He stepped forward and turned towards Lukas to make a large, dramatic gesture with his arms. "Voila! The living room!" he exclaimed, earning a chuckle from Lukas.

The kitchen was situated in the room, with counters surrounding it like a bar. Lukas curiously stepped into the kitchen and looked around, carefully stroking the marble on the countertops before his eyes caught sight of the stove. It appeared to be completely unused, as if Mathias had never cooked in his life. Mathias followed Lukas and appeared by his side to observe what the android was looking at.

"You've never used it before?" Lukas asked, curiously looking up at Mathias. Mathias shrugged indifferently.

"I've no interest," the inventor replied. Lukas shrugged as well and exited the small kitchen to look around the living room.

"Wow. This is all yours?" he said, gaze roaming the room. Lukas took note of the furniture as well as the intricate details of the decorations on the walls, eyes wide in wonder.

Mathias was perplexed at this. He didn't think he had much to show off, and so the android's wonder threw him off a bit. "I wasn't expecting this reaction," he admitted. "If anything, I expected you to hate it."

Lukas's attention snapped back at Mathias. "Are you kidding? You seem to be living quite comfortably, if I should say so myself." His gaze returned towards the couch, and he allowed his fingertips to graze over its soft fabric.

"Oh." Mathias bit the inside of his cheek as he thought. Now that he thought about it, his house wasn't as small as he'd thought it to be. Then again, he had to remind himself that he spent most of his time in his bedroom and laboratory for the past few years. He couldn't even remember sitting down on the couch it's been so long.

Lukas leisurely sat down on the couch and leaned back, before patting the surface beside him for Mathias to follow. The inventor smiled warmly and took a seat next to him.

 _Funny_ , Mathias thought to himself, _I would expect the living room furniture to be dusty_.

On the contrary. The glass table in front of them was completely spotless, yet Mathias couldn't remember the last time he'd dusted it. He must've installed something in his house's program to take care of it, he decided.

Lukas was also looking at the glass table, but not for the same reason as Mathias. He leaned forward and peered inside the plastic bag on top of the glass, taking notice of what was inside.

Mathias sat up slightly. "Oh, right. I put that there this morning. I broke a vase yesterday when I was running to enter the laboratory through the side door, so I swept it up into a bag for when I attempt to fix it later."

Lukas picked up a medium sized shard and inspected it closely. "I've learned two things about you today," he said, "you're rich, and you're terribly clumsy."

"I'm going to have to refute you on both of those claims," Mathias snapped, eyebrow quirked at the android. Lukas chuckled.

"Alright fine. Just because you break a single vase doesn't make you terribly clumsy. You're just clumsy."

Mathias groaned and leaned back, before smiling contentedly. "And I wouldn't call myself rich," he said after a moment of silence as Lukas observed the pieces in the bag.

"Well," Lukas said, "what do you do for a living, then? You seem to stay home all day, but if that's the case how do you pay for your living expenses?"

Mathias's face went blank, and it took a moment for him to construct an answer, as if he himself was malfunctioning like Lukas theoretically could.

"Technical stuff," he finally blurted out. "But I don't work anymore. Well, I technically don't. I'll work at home if I receive any clients, which is rare." Mathias furrowed his brow at his response. It felt too scripted, but he knew it to be the truth. Mathias shook his head of the thought.

Perhaps he should be honest with Lukas about his current situation. Why he was living as a hermit, why they couldn't go outside, all that nonsense. He stood up from the couch and Lukas followed, carefully placing the shards back into the bag.

"The only other rooms I have is my room, the bathroom, and a few closets. Follow me," Mathias said, and the two made their way through the neat house to the inventor's bedroom.

The bedroom wasn't too big, but it was large enough to house a small bed in the corner, a bedside table, a small drawer, and a desk. Lukas pursed his lips in disapproval upon seeing the state of Mathias's bed, which displayed the covers lazily tossed aside.

"Tsk." Lukas stepped farther into the room to get to work with making the bed, and Mathias made a soft cry of protest.

"It's fine, Lukas! I'll make the bed later. There's no need to—"

Lukas brilliantly straightened the blanket and folded the covers parallel to the bed frame with as much precision as a factory machine.

"You should know by now that making your bed every morning gives you a boost of productivity," Lukas grumbled as he finished making the bed in less than a minute. He found Mathias gaping at him when he turned around. "What?"

"How'd you do it so fast?" Mathias demanded, before shaking his head quickly. "You know what, never mind. We can talk about that later. Here, I'll show you the closet and bathroom."

Mathias stepped outside and Lukas followed. Immediately outside the bedroom there was a small door. In a swift motion, the inventor threw open the door, revealing a cramped space where he kept his tools for his projects. Although it wasn't too big, there was enough room to hold all kinds of material, ranging from plastic to fiberglass to synthetic fibers.

"I usually keep extra supplies in here when I don't need them. Everything else is stored in my lab," Mathias explained. Lukas hummed a reply and nodded, eyeing the many materials in the closet before Mathias shut the door.

"And finally, the bathroom." Mathias only had to walk just a bit down the hall to find himself in the threshold of the small room, with Lukas following close behind. The inventor stepped aside for Lukas to see, but he found the android snickering a bit. "What?" he asked.

"You're making it seem like you're putting fireworks on display. It's just a bathroom."

"Aw, c'mon Lukas! I'm trying to be enthusiastic!"

"I didn't say I didn't appreciate your enthusiasm," Lukas retorted. He took Mathias's hand and began walking back towards the living room.

They returned to lounging in the main room, this time with Lukas sitting on the couch opposite Mathias.

"I noticed your windows were boarded up." Lukas said after the two relaxed for a few moments.

Mathias blinked. "Oh. The windows..."

At that, Lukas looked at him expectantly, causing the inventor to bite his lip in dread.

"I like to keep my distance from my neighbors, if you haven't noticed already. I've made...I guess you could say I've made an effort to keep my privacy in this house," Mathias said, explaining his situation in as little words possible.

"Why have you been hiding?"

Mathias chewed his lip a bit more as he struggled to find the right words. "I'm kind of...not allowed to be doing what I'm doing...uh. In terms of..."

"You're not allowed to..." Lukas studied Mathias's face for a tense moment before he understood and his eyes widened. "You mean...nobody knows I exist?" he whispered, partially to himself. Mathias strained his ears to hear the android, and once he'd understood what the other said, he looked away guiltily.

"That's right. The creation of androids was outlawed years ago," he said. "But it's fine...as long as I pay my bills and order my groceries, nobody would ever know."

Lukas let out a breath and sat back, staring at the glass table between them. The two sat like that for a minute before Lukas spoke up again.

"So...why did you create me, then? If it's illegal?"

Mathias pondered the question. Why _did_ he create Lukas? He often told himself that he started up this project in the name of science—to study the nature of machines. Sure, that could be said to be true if you apply it to when Mathias had first begun to build Lukas from scratch. It started out as a project to keep his mind busy at home—it could be compared to practicing a hobby.

Mathias's original plan was to build a lifelike model of a human with scripted responses, just for fun. His interests were always in the technical sciences, and he'd had many more projects before Lukas. His previous (and rejected) project ideas included that of robotic puppies or birds. But halfway through the building process Mathias found himself growing increasingly obsessed with his beautiful creation, and his loneliness caused him to desire companionship with Lukas before he was even powered on. He found himself missing his father, the only man who had ever truly understood him.

Mathias blinked out of his reminiscing and cleared his dry throat. How could he summarize every passing thought and desire he had in the building process? Was it even possible?

"Well...I guess you could say I needed a friend."

Well then. Mathias deemed that statement an acceptable response, and he sat back as Lukas smiled softly upon hearing it.


	8. 8.0

Dreamless nights. That's mostly all Mathias had ever known. He couldn't recall the last time he had a vivid dream; one where he could smell the unique scents of his surroundings and feel its breeze against his skin. He felt none of that.

Whenever he did have dreams, they were always filled with blue. A dull, blue glow almost haunted him every so often in his sleep, yet he would wake up at ease. It was no surprise that he'd wanted to recreate it in his laboratory, and it was especially no surprise that he chose that same blue glow to color Lukas's eyes with.

This night was no different. Mathias surfaced from his blue dreams as he slowly woke up. His sleepy eyes traced the room and he felt something different about this morning than any other morning he'd woken up to. His bed was neater, his mood was calmer...

Mathias's eyes widened. _Shit_. Had he really been foolish enough to keep Lukas out of the laboratory while he was _asleep_? The android could possibly use this moment of weakness to escape—or worse.

The inventor darted out of bed, racing to his living room before stopping dead in his tracks upon seeing his closet door open.

He felt his heart begin to beat faster as he realized what this could possibly mean. What was he thinking, showing Lukas where he kept all his tools and whatnot? Who knows what the android might intend on using them for?

Mathias shut the door and hastily made his way to the living room, but halted immediately when he saw Lukas at the glass table in he middle of the room.

The android was hovering over his broken vase—now halfway fixed—and carefully, with precision, attaching another shard into place. A paintbrush was in one of his hands, and Mathias spotted a bottle of glue on the table. The inventor sighed in relief. There was nothing to be fearful of. Hadn't he learned that by now?

Lukas took notice of the inventor's presence and politely set the brush down. "Good morning, Mathias." He stepped back. "I hope you don't mind."

Mathias cracked his first smile that day. "Oh no, no, no. Of course I don't. I actually appreciate it." He stepped forward to get a better look.

The vase (or what was left of it so far) almost seemed as good as new. Lukas seemed to have put good care into glueing the pieces back together, as Mathias could barely see any cracks along the surface. If he studied the glass close enough and squinted, he could see the minuscule details of the broken shards. However, even then he found that he liked the vase better this way.

"It looks good," Mathias murmured, studying the glass a little while more before straightening his stance and turning to Lukas. Lukas attempted to hinder his smile as he nervously tucked a lock of hair behind his ear.

Of course, Mathias couldn't let that gesture go so easily. "Aw, did I see you blush just then, Lukas?" he teased, causing the android to smile even more. Lukas turned his head towards the kitchen and cleared his throat.

"You flatter yourself too much. Come, I'll make you something to eat, if you like." And with that, Lukas walked away.

Alright then. Mathias had tested the waters, and had been rejected (albeit with a positive response from the other). But he wasn't one to give up so easily.

After all, he barely had much control over his own life. It was fun to manipulate the reactions of another, as it gave the mere illusion of control.

Mathias froze in horror at his own thoughts. No, he couldn't try to _manipulate_ the emotions of Lukas! He wasn't that heartless! His motivations seemed innocent enough in the beginning, but upon pondering over his reasoning, it seemed wrong.

Maybe he should stop.

"Are you just going to stand there?" came Lukas's voice from the kitchen. Mathias shook his head from his thoughts and fixed his messy hair before making his way to where Lukas was. He found Lukas rummaging through his pantry, clicking his tongue.

"Do you only store non perishable foods in here?" the android asked disapprovingly. Mathias gave a sheepish nod.

"Well, I don't go out much." Mathias's face twisted a bit in discomfort. "You don't need to cook for me, Lukas. I eat whenever I'm hungry, so I'll be fine."

Lukas shook his head and shut the pantry. "It's not healthy for your diet to consist of snack foods throughout the day. But whatever you say, Mathias." Then, he turned to the inventor and smiled. "I wouldn't want to waste your ingredients if you refuse to leave the house."

"You do realize you don't have to assist me like a servant, right? If I wanted a maid I would've built a maid," Mathias said. Lukas rubbed the back of his neck and looked down.

"My apologies," said Lukas. "What would you like to do, then?"

"What would _you_ like to do?"

Lukas paused to think. "I suppose I should continue with fixing the vase."

"That's what you want to do today?"

"Well..." Lukas suddenly looked embarrassed. "I would _like_ to spend time with you today. If it's what you want as well."

Mathias smiled warmly at that. "I would love to spend time with you Lukas." He then took the android's hand and led the other into the living room.

"Got another brush?" Mathias asked. Lukas looked surprised for a moment, but his surprise was quickly replaced by enthusiasm as he nodded and went off to find another in the closet.

Mathias was now left alone. He had been alone for years, but why did the idea of being alone _now_ feel so uncomfortable?

His mind ran through all the times he'd shamelessly flirted with the android, and all the times the android shyly flirted back. Mathias couldn't keep this up, could he? He was the type to get attached quite easily, but what would it mean for him if he became attached to Lukas? Lukas proved again and again that he didn't intend on harming Mathias or attempting an escape, so why was Mathias still nervous?

It was too early to tell whether or not he had fallen in love, but only time will tell before—

"You don't seem like the type of person to be interested in painting."

Mathias was jolted from his thoughts, and he looked up in time to see Lukas waving a spare brush around as he entered the living room again.

"Well, not really. I'm guessing you noticed the collection of paint in the closet, huh?" Mathias gratefully took the spare paintbrush from Lukas and knelt down next to the table, carefully dipping the paintbrush into the glue.

"Yes. What reason could you possibly have for storing so much paint? I assumed at first glance you were an artist, but the paint is untouched." Lukas knelt beside Mathias and focused on adding glue to a shard. Mathias, now uncomfortably aware of how close Lukas was, cleared his throat.

"Well I...I'm definitely _not_ an artist. It was just for some woodworking, that's all," came Mathias's reply. Lukas nodded slowly, eyes still focused on the shard in hand as he carefully fit it onto the vase, the shard falling into place like a puzzle piece.

"But before I built you I was actually planning on building a puppy instead," the inventor continued, attempting to fit a shard onto the vase, then wondering why it wouldn't fit. "As I was working out the programming and the build of the machine, I decided to try and build a little dog house for it."

Lukas chuckled. "You have a soft spot for dogs?"

Mathias nodded eagerly. "Oh yes. They are a man's best friend, after all!"

"And you wanted to paint the house blue?" Lukas asked, but it sounded more like a statement to Mathias. Mathias gave a chuckle himself.

"Yes. How'd you know?"

"You seem to like the color blue quite a bit. I also noticed the blue paints were the only ones opened in the closet."

Mathias nodded thoughtfully and bit his tongue as he carefully fit another piece of glass onto the vase. The two fell into a comfortable silence, both of them working almost in a trance as they put all their focus onto fixing the vase. Mathias had managed to work with a precision almost as close as Lukas's, but the other still had the mechanical advantage of him, and seemed to be working on double time.

Finally, Lukas spoke up again. "Are robotic dogs illegal to build as well?" he asked softly.

Mathias gave it some thought, then answered. "No. I don't see why it would be illegal. Unless you gave it a human brain."

The android placed the last shard onto the vase and set his brush down, admiring the work. Mathias now held the last shard, and was having trouble applying glue to it due to its small size. "Here, let me—" Lukas began, only to be cut off by Mathias.

"No no! I got it. I got it..." Mathias's tongue hung out of his mouth in extreme focus as he very carefully set the last piece into place on the vase. Lukas had to restrain himself from breaking out into laughter, in case it would startle the other from his trace.

"There." Mathias brought his hands away from the vase and sat back, admiring the complete vase. "Thanks for the help."

"I should be thanking _you_ ," Lukas replied, standing and helping Mathias up. The two sat on the sofa side by side and admired the vase together, again falling into a comfortable silence.

This time, it was Mathias who broke the silence. "I'm sure you have many questions. You know, regarding the whole illegal AI business."

Lukas stole a glance at Mathias as the other was absently looking over the vase. "I do. But I wouldn't want to pry if you're not ready to tell."

Mathias shrugged. "Nah, it's fine. You deserve to know, anyway."

"It sounds important."

"I guess it is."

Another silence fell upon the two, but it was shorter this time. Mathias broke it again.

"This city used to have many androids walking around, assisting people with their day to day lives. It was a pretty common occurrence to see androids working out in the open. But only the rich could afford them, because it was a pretty early invention, and there weren't too many going around."

"But it was still a common occurrence to see them outside?"

"Yeah, pretty common. I mean, it was a huge trend within the upper classes to have an android. Everyone was excited about them, until..." Mathias stopped and bit his lip nervously.

"Until?"

"Well, I'm not sure how you'd feel about me telling you this, but...you see, they replaced all the factory workers with government-owned androids. And one of those androids apparently developed free will. At least, that's what I've been told in school. But this one android had control over the production of other androids, and apparently he was programming other androids to have free will, just like himself. And of course, the government found out and freaked the hell out about it, and went on to ban the production of any self learning AI. That...includes you, Lukas."

Mathias expected a bigger reaction out of Lukas, but the android only hummed in response as his brow furrowed in thought. "So what you're saying is none of the other androids had free will except for _one_ factory worker?"

Mathias turned his head to look at Lukas and nodded. "Yeah, I'd say so. They weren't programmed to have free will. Some conspiracy theorists think a human working in the factory programmed one of the androids to think for themself. But I can't tell you if it's true or not."

"I'd say it is true. Machines can't go against their programming. There needed to be a catalyst," Lukas noted. Then, he sat up and turned to face directly towards Mathias. "Do _I_ have free will?"

"I don't see why you wouldn't," Mathias replied.

Mathias found it odd that Lukas even needed to ask. The android thought at a rate much faster than the inventor, and yet he couldn't tell whether or not he had free will?

Free will, to Mathias, was just something everyone was always aware about. Everyone _knows_ they have free will. That's what even gives them power over their actions in the first place.

But then again, Mathias didn't really have the authority to speak about such an issue. Free will was a given when it came to human minds.

And the last time Mathias checked, he was certainly a human being. He had nothing left to say on the issue. It was up to Lukas to decide for himself.


	9. 9.0

Although unfamiliar with his surroundings, Lukas enjoyed spending his time upstairs rather than the laboratory. Sure, there were the obvious reasons why that would be so. After all, nobody wants to stay cooped up in a basement for years. But Lukas found he enjoyed the change of scenery far more, and didn't think much of the laboratory again for a while after he'd left it.

Of course, there would be days where he would venture back down to grab a book or two, but he didn't have much interest in staying down there longer than five minutes. But today was different.

Lukas sensed that Mathias still had an inkling of distrust for him, even after all the time they've spent with each other so far. Some days, it was as if he withheld information from the android, as if the android could possibly do anything sinister with it.

_He's warming up to me, though. Patience is key._

Mathias let Lukas roam free while he _slept_ , so that must be a good sign, right?

Then again, he also locked his room at night. But Lukas liked to stay positive.

While the young man was sound asleep, Lukas took it upon himself to try and take a peak at what he'd scribbled down on paper when the two would have their "sessions". He knew Mathias kept a journal locked away in his room (he would see him protectively clutch it to his chest before locking himself in) so he knew what was off limits and what wasn't.

Lukas carefully made his way to Mathias's desk within the laboratory. He had entered from the stairs the inventor usually took, and it felt strange to see the room from a completely different perspective. From the office, looking into the glass, it felt like Lukas was testing explosives or chemical weapons.

He shook the intrusive thought away. Maybe he was being too close minded.

But perhaps...he should grab a book from the bookshelf to use as an excuse as to why he decided to venture down here? He didn't want to risk getting into any trouble with Mathias. After all, he could lie effortlessly if he really wanted to.

Lukas furrowed his brow. _No, I couldn't. Why would I choose to be something Mathias feared I was?_

Lukas decided he'd have to be quick if he wanted to look around. It was only a matter of time before Mathias would wake up.

The android picked up an open notepad and flipped through a few pages curiously. He had some practice reading Mathias's handwriting ever since he meticulously studied his textbooks, so reading the messy lettering wasn't too difficult for him. If he found an unintelligible word scrawled across the paper, his AI would create a calculated guess on what the word could be in the context of the rest of the note.

Lukas couldn't help but feel a little hurt on what he found written on the pages. He found that most of the time Mathias only scribbled detailed sentences on his body language and tics. As if the inventor wanted to deconstruct his behavior like scientists do to animals.

No. He couldn't think that way again, could he? Lukas could instead see it in a different light; perhaps the notes could be compared to that of an anthropologist instead.

Yes, that's better. Far better.

Lukas grew bored of the notes, as they were becoming quite repetitive, so he set them back down on the table exactly as he found it. He stepped away from the desk to inspect the drawers pushed against the wall on his left.

He was unfortunately too short to reach the upper drawers, but the lower ones had interesting content that the android sifted through innocently. What was so bad about what he was doing? Lukas had absolutely no wrong intentions. He was simply curious.

Lukas finished idly searching through the bottom drawer (which was mostly filled with extra metal tools and scraps) and moved onto the draw above it. Inside that drawer, he found mostly paper, but that didn't stop him from taking interest.

Lukas carefully pulled out what seemed to be a blueprint for a machine, and he made sure to take note the exact spot he found it in.

From what Lukas could assume from its appearance, it looked to be the dog Mathias planned to create before him. The android smiled softly. Perhaps he could build it himself to surprise the inventor.

Lukas's expression darkened upon that thought. No. Mathias would know he was snooping through his stuff if he did. The android made a dissatisfied huff and slid the paper back into the drawer. He glanced behind his back to make sure the other wasn't watching him, and turned back to return his attention to the drawers, until something bright caught his eye.

Abandoning the open drawer, Lukas took a few steps to get a closer look at the partially painted wood stacked against the concrete walls of the office. Just a quick glimpse at the wooden pieces was enough for Lukas to construct a picture in his head an image of the house it was supposed to be, and he found himself smiling. It's a shame Mathias didn't continue his puppy project. Perhaps he could request him to finish it in the future...

Lukas drew his attention back to the open drawer. He sifted through a few more papers, before stopping at a silver disk. He pulled the disk out to get a closer look and found that it had the words _Project LUKAS_ scrawled in marker over the surface. However, the android couldn't recognize the handwriting.

Interesting.

The android took the disk and inserted it into Mathias's video player. The video that began playing was to be expected. Lukas suspected he was being filmed while he was undergoing sessions, so it was no surprise to see their previous discussions play again on the screen of Mathias's computer.

After a moment of watching the tape, Lukas grew bored and returned his attention to the drawers. He shut the one he found the disks in and opened the drawer above it, with the tape still playing in the background. He'd put it back when he was finished searching the drawers he could reach.

This drawer, however, was just within reaching height for Lukas. He couldn't see at all what was inside, and had to stand on his toes to reach and grab anything that was hidden there. After feeling for what felt like a booklet, Lukas took hold of it and yanked it out of the drawer.

 _Oh_ —

Now, although Lukas was a machine, he still felt embarrassment and shame. Heck, he was programmed to be able to feel these things! But even with that knowledge, Lukas was still mighty startled by the amount of shock and shame he felt upon seeing the contents of the book he'd pulled out of the drawer...

Alright. Well. Mathias was a human, so the android didn't have the right to judge. He assumed many humans kept magazines like this hidden away, anyway. It was normal.

_So that's why he chose to hide it in the upper drawers..._

He still couldn't help but feel shame begin to bubble up from the back of his mind. The truth finally hit him. Lukas was _intruding_.

The android quickly stuffed the magazine back into the upper drawer and shut it.

_"Where am I?"_

_"You're in my laboratory."_

_"I see. I assume I am being tested here, correct?"_

Lukas's eyes flicked to the monitor at Mathias's desk.

_"I am testing you, yes. But I don't want you to think of it like that. Just think of it as a conversation between you and me. Is that okay?"_

The android's breathing slowed as he calmed himself down. The video that played back on the monitor was only focused on the image of Lukas himself, and it was quite a strange sight to behold. He was so different then, yet the same.

Suddenly, Lukas caught a glimpse of wild blond hair in his peripheral vision and inwardly panicked, but made the effort not to show it on his face.

"What are you doing?" Mathias asked. Lukas turned his attention to the inventor, and saw that the other was running a hand through his hair. He'd recognized that action as a nervous tic of the inventor's.

Perhaps he was studying Mathias just as Mathias was studying him.

Lukas decided to tell the truth.

"I was curious to see what you've written on your notes during our previous sessions."

It wasn't exactly a lie. That's what he came to do in the first place. His snooping came after...especially once his curiosity got the best of him.

"You found the disk in the drawers, haven't you?" the inventor asked. He didn't sound accusatory at all, which put Lukas at ease somewhat.

Lukas slowly nodded.

Mathias sighed. Then, he seemed to have realized something.

"Wait, did you look through the third drawer?" he asked, all the while making the attempt to appear stoic in expression.

He couldn't risk embarrassing the poor man, so Lukas immediately searched his brain for the explicit, suggestive images he'd seen in the magazine, extracted it, and deleted it. As he did this, his eyes rolled back into his head for a quick moment as his eyes blinked rapidly. Then, the movement stopped, and Lukas was able to look straight ahead at Mathias again.

"Not yet, but I was planning to. Why?" Lukas said. And it was the truth. At least, he _thought_ it was.

Mathias gave him a knowing look. "You saw the porno magazines, didn't you?" He then broke into a fit of amused laughter.

Lukas frowned. "Is that supposed to be a joke?"

Mathias laughed even harder. "That's hilarious!" he wheezed.

"I'm guessing it _was_ a joke, then."

"No, no, no! I'm telling the truth, it's just that..." the inventor's laughter subsided somewhat. "Never mind." He looked up at the video.

"But I see you've gotten your hands on my videos, huh?"

Lukas bit his lip. "I'm sorry..." he said softly. "I admit my curiosity got the best of me."

Mathias moved in to stand side by side with Lukas, and the two watched the video in silence for a moment. "No need to apologize," Mathias said back. He turned to Lukas and gave a lopsided smile, before putting an arm around the android's shoulders.

"Besides, I shouldn't have been hiding all this stuff from you."

Lukas became uncomfortably aware of the presence beside him, and he had a bit of trouble trying to hide the blush creeping up on his face. As uncomfortable as he was trying to mask his shyness, he also—funnily enough—found himself immensely comfortable in the other man's arms. Lukas chewed his lip as he thought.

"What were you planning on doing with this footage?" he asked Mathias nervously. He heard Mathias chuckle.

"Well, I don't have perfect photographic memory like you do, so I needed to film our sessions so I can look back in case anything goes wrong with your programming," the inventor explained. Lukas nodded in response, but he said nothing.

"I know what you're thinking," Mathias then said after a pause. "I'd assume you'd feel...more like a _thing_ than a person after seeing all the notes and video tapes and..." his voice trailed off.

Suddenly, Lukas felt the warmth from Mathias's arm on his shoulder disappear as the inventor drew away from him.

"How about this," Mathias said, grabbing the notepad and ejecting the disk from the video player. With the notepad under his arm and the disk in hand, he gestured for Lukas to follow him.

On the other side of the office was a paper shredder, with which Mathias shoved the notepad in impatiently.

"This should do it—" the inventor turned the machine on, and it rumbled a bit before slowly chewing apart the thick stack of paper.

"Perhaps you should have torn the pages apart before putting it into the shredder," Lukas informed, taking note at how slow and choppy the machine was shredding the paper, seeing as how Mathias literally dumped the entire notepad into it without breaking it apart first.

"Nah, it'll be fine."

And it was. The shredder held true to Mathias's trust in it, and before long, the paper was reduced to (quite literally) shreds.

"And for the disk—" Mathias took Lukas's hand and the two made their way upstairs and to the kitchen. Mathias located the microwave and placed the disk inside against a mug, before shutting it and looking to Lukas with a newfound pride.

"From this moment on, we will be dropping the _'Project'_ in your name. You will now officially be known as just _Lukas_. Understood?"

Lukas quirked an eyebrow and his expression appeared bored, but he secretly adored this gesture and felt a growing heat in his chest.

"You never referred to me as 'Project Lukas' before," Lukas deadpanned, teasing the inventor and his excitement. Mathias groaned at that.

"Shush! You're ruining a dramatic moment!" the inventor whined. Lukas allowed himself to smile softly.

_He's just too endearing._

"Fine. Do what you must," the android replied. Mathias excitedly punched a few button on the microwave and stepped back as the machine lit up.

The two stood side by side and observed the disk as sparks of electricity ran through it, creating a beautiful electrical storm within the microwave. Lukas glanced over at Mathias and felt his mechanical heart twist unexpectedly. Mathias had a proud smile on his face and he held his head high while watching all his scientific work be permanently destroyed, and it was then that Lukas realized that the inventor really did care about him. He was willing to destroy his notes, his film, _everything_...just for the sake of Lukas's comfort.

Lukas smiled to himself and turned his attention back to the microwave, as soft embers sparked at the disk, burning away what once was. He was no longer a project. He was simply Lukas.


	10. 10.0

Mathias hadn't seen Lukas for hours now. The android absently called from the staircase that he was heading to the basement to work on something and then didn't return in quite some time.

The inventor absently traced a finger over the cracked surface of the broken disk. After he and Lukas watched the microwave destroy it, it left behind a beautiful souvenir as well as a wonderful show.

The words _Project LUKAS_ were still scrawled along the surface, but it's letters were broken up with the many cracks along the surface, as well as smudged by the melted plastic. The surface of the disk itself also reflected a faint rainbow color, and from time to time Mathias found himself tilting it to watch the light reflect off of the silver coating.

But there, in the living room on the couch, Mathias sat and pondered while fiddling with the broken disk. The words _Project LUKAS_ didn't seem to match up with the inventor's usual handwriting, but even if he noticed he wouldn't care much at all. His mind was all over the place that day, and he couldn't seem to stay focused on anything, let alone a broken disk.

He wondered briefly if Lukas was looking through his magazines. He wouldn't be surprised. Lukas was curious by nature, always has been. In a way, it reminded the inventor of himself. But what did this mean about Mathias?

For a while now, Mathias yearned for human connection, yet he valued his intellect and his own curiosity far more. After being forced to stay home alone in order to break the law and build an AI, he found himself craving the intimacy that came with human connection.

The magazines helped to keep Mathias's nagging feeling at bay, but its effects only lasted temporarily. He was alone.

But that couldn't be the reason why he built a humanoid robot, right? No. No, it couldn't be. Mathias couldn't imagine being so lonely that he had to invent a doll to feel the artificial comfort of a sexual companion.

But it didn't help that he was falling deeply in love with Lukas.

If he wanted a sex toy, he would've built a sex toy. It's as simple as that. But it didn't help that he instead designed an android that happened to be so beautiful, and it _certainly_ didn't help that the android _himself_ developed such a beautiful personality.

The inventor's biggest weakness when it came to traits he desired in a person would definitely be their personality, above all else. And don't even get Mathias started on Lukas's keen intellect.

Everything about Lukas was perfect, and that alone killed Mathias inside. What was he to do now? Fall in love, only to grow old all by himself and leave Lukas to wander the earth alone in a world that hated him?

That's another thing—what would Lukas do once Mathias finally died?

Mathias closed his eyes and leaned back against the cushions of the sofa and pondered some more. It should really be Lukas deciding their fates. If Lukas decided to keep his distance emotionally speaking, that would be fine with Mathias. In fact, it would be preferable.

 _It would be preferable_ , a voice hissed inside Mathias's head, yet the inventor didn't completely agree with it. He repeated it a few more times to himself, but the fire in his heart wouldn't subside. It hurt him to know that a relationship between the two of them could never work out.

Besides, what if Lukas's feelings weren't mutual?

Deciding that that was enough miserable pondering for the day, Mathias stood up in a quick motion, attempting to relieve his mind of his painful thoughts. Perhaps he should check up on Lukas. Yes, that's exactly what he would do.

Mathias stumbled towards the staircase to the basement and made his way to the laboratory. Upon entering his office, he found Lukas sitting in his chair, seemingly looking closely at something laying on the desk. He cleared his throat to get the android's attention.

Lukas looked up and beamed at Mathias. "I was wondering when you'd come down. Here, come look." He gestured for Mathias to come closer to see what was on the desk, and so the inventor made his way to the desk and leaned over the android's shoulder.

Two tiny silver crosses were neatly placed on the surface of the desk in front of Lukas, and when Mathias looked around to inspect the desk itself he found that it was transformed into a temporary working space for some sort of mechanical project. Screwdrivers were laid about, heating and melting devices were carefully resting near an outlet where they were supposedly getting their power from, and Mathias's computers were turned on and buzzing with information.

"What are they?" Mathias inquired, studying the tiny silver pieces.

"Let me show you," Lukas replied, before carefully picking up one of the crosses and attaching it to a magnet (of sorts) that was manually attached to the computer. As soon as the cross made contact with the magnet, Mathias's computer closed all its previous files and replaced the screen with...a video?

Lukas allowed the footage on the computer screen to play, before Mathias realized that it came from Lukas's own eyes.

Mathias couldn't believe it. Lukas had managed to extract his own memories and fit them all into a tiny computer!

"How'd you manage to do all this in only a day?" Mathias asked, unable to believe his eyes. "And why'd you choose to upload your memories?"

Lukas blushed and averted his gaze towards the desk. "Well, you told me you didn't have perfect memory, which is why you used the video footage on the disk. But I still want you to be able to revisit all the fond memories we've shared so far, just not in a laboratory context.

Lukas picked up the second cross laying on the desk and brought it up for Mathias to inspect closer. "I used the material from the coin you gave me."

Mathias carefully took hold of the tiny computer from Lukas's hand and ran his thumb over the metallic surface in awe. "It's beautiful. What were you planning on doing with it?"

Lukas smirked playfully. "Remember when I stuck the coin on my face?"

Mathias nodded and stifled a laugh.

"Well. The magnetic force between my brain and the coin is powerful enough for the metal to stay firmly on my head. Watch," Lukas said, taking the cross back from Mathias. He then carefully positioned it on the side of his head, and just as expected, the magnet stuck firmly against his golden hair.

"The other cross will stay on this metal cube. Both crosses are linked to each other, so all the memories I experience will be captured by this cross and transferred to the cross connected to the computer. That way, my memories will be stored inside the computer for you to see whenever you feel like revisiting the past. The cross connected to the computer is yours, Mathias."

Mathias stood frozen for a small moment, before he shook himself back to reality. Lukas really trusted him with his own _memories_? He couldn't help but take note at the intimacy of such a gesture, but he shook away this thought, as the depressing thoughts from earlier were creeping back at him.

"Thank you," Mathias replied softly, finally finding the voice that was caught in his throat prior. "That means a lot, Lukas."

Lukas chuckled and looked down at the desk nervously. Mathias eyed the cross sitting atop Lukas's hair, and leaned closer, despite the voice in his head urging him not to.

"It's a bit crooked. Let me..." Mathias mumbled, reaching a hand out. Lukas turned his head towards Mathias and allowed the other to remove the clip and reapply it gently, all the while averting his gaze so that he didn't look directly at the inventor. An expression that Mathias couldn't quite put a name to graced the android's features, and it took some effort for the inventor to ignore it as he tucked a lock of blond hair behind Lukas's ears after adjusting the clip.

Mathias found that he couldn't break his gaze at Lukas, and the voice in his head echoed annoyingly in the back of his mind, yet he couldn't stop allowing himself to drown in the sight of the other's eyes. The same dark blue that haunted him in his sleep; the same dark blue that he was so uncomfortably—yet comfortably all the same—familiar with.

Lukas's gaze slowly made its way to Mathias's eyes and for just a moment, as the two took in the sight of the other's eyes, nothing else seemed to exist.

Mathias's raging inner thoughts finally caught up with his actions, and he finally broke the contact between himself and Lukas, all the while clearing his throat awkwardly and running a hand through his hair.

"You look great," he mumbled quietly, to which Lukas bit his lip and smiled shyly at the ground. "Shall we go upstairs?"

Lukas nodded and stood up, and the two of them exited the laboratory and made their way upstairs, with Mathias absentmindedly dimming the lights by habit.

"Have you eaten?" Lukas asked when they made it back to the living room. Mathias wrinkled his nose.

"I'm not hungry."

Lukas shook his head in disapproval and crossed his arms. "You should be. You haven't eaten all day." His expression softened. "Are you alright?"

Mathias shrugged. "I dunno. I'm just not that hungry. Besides, I've had a lot on my mind lately." Sensing the other's concern, he added, "are you _worried_ about me, Lukas?"

Lukas instantly became flustered at that. "Why would you ask such a foolish thing?" He turned his head away. "Of _course_ I'm worried about you."

Mathias let out an unrestrained bark of laughter and playfully shoved Lukas with his shoulder. "Well don't be. I think we can both agree that we both have enough to worry about, don't you think?"

Lukas paused, then nodded slowly. "I suppose. But I still think you should eat more."

 _How stubborn_. Mathias chuckled. "I'm lucky to have you in my life, as stubborn as you are," he said, earning an unimpressed stare from Lukas.

"Don't think I'll just forget about the issue at hand, Mathias. This is serious," the android deadpanned. Mathias snickered and skipped away towards the sofas.

"Whatever." Mathias fell backwards onto the sofa and looked up, waiting patiently for Lukas to join him. He was then happy to see the android smirk to himself and sit beside him.

"Can I just take a nap right here?" Mathias mumbled softly, still staring up at the ceiling. Lukas gave him an odd look.

"...You're asking me for permission?" Lukas asked, a puzzled tone lacing his words. Mathias laughed softly and turned his head towards the android to see him resting against his arm which was propped up against the cushion of the sofa.

"Can I lean against you while I sleep?" Mathias asked cautiously. His inner voices were screaming at him by now, but he found it too easy to succumb to his attraction for the other.

How inconvenient. It just goes to show how different humans are to machines, doesn't it? Mathias only yearned for the comfort of present pleasures, and never thought or planned ahead. Emotional wants were his biggest weakness.

But he didn't just want Lukas. He _needed_ Lukas. Mathias could barely describe his feelings in words if he had to, but those feelings were there. And so he was beyond elated when he heard the other chuckle and say:

"You may. Come closer."

Mathias beamed and shifted closer to Lukas before leaning his upper body to rest on the android's shoulder. They were still for a moment, and Mathias could feel Lukas gently running his fingers through his unkempt hair.

"Do you ever sleep?" Mathias mumbled curiously, eyes half lidded and sleepy. Lukas let out a soft laugh, and his smile was heard in his voice.

"I'm not sure. Once a day, after you've locked yourself in your room I feel myself powering down—but only temporarily. I seem to power back on around an hour before you wake up. It's...odd." Lukas's hand froze from Mathias's hair for a moment while he pondered. "I'm unsure if that would count as sleep, though."

"Hm." Mathias sighed. "You were down there for a while, you know," he mumbled after a short lull in conversation. He heard Lukas chuckle some more.

"Looks like somebody missed me," he teased softly, his hand resuming its motion as it ran through Mathias's hair again.

"I did..."

Mathias had his ear pressed against Lukas's shoulder, and he was comforted by the faint ticking of the mechanics underneath the android's skin. He felt himself quietly lose consciousness in the comfort of the sounds of an artificial heartbeat, and was thankful to the universe to be able to share this moment with Lukas in the present.

To hell with the future.


	11. 11.0

"You're surrounded."

Mathias grumbled angrily at the chess board. "No I'm not," he replied, attempting to calculate the moves he had remaining. He didn't want to admit it, but he knew the android was correct.

After a moment of hurried thinking, Mathias came to the realization that he really was trapped. Any move he made would lead to a checkmate.

"Fine!" Mathias exclaimed, making his final move. "Go ahead. Win for the thirtieth time. See if I care."

Lukas chuckled, but only sat back and observed the grumbling inventor. Mathias looked up and noticed the other wasn't moving, so he tilted his head and raised a brow.

"What? Aren't you gonna go ahead and win? I just gave you the opportunity."

Lukas then rolled his eyes. "You didn't _give_ me any opportunity at all. I had the opportunity to win all along."

Mathias crossed his arms stubbornly and sunk into the cushions of the coach. "Whatever."

"I'm surprised you haven't given up yet. Seeing as how I've only won so far. Repeatedly."

"Do you have to rub it in my face, Lukas? I get it, I'm bad at chess."

Lukas simply observed Mathias's expression and smiled softly, before standing up and meeting Mathias at the other side of the table, sitting beside him. The chessboard was now forgotten.

"You're not bad at chess at all," Lukas commented quietly. "In fact, you're pretty good for someone competing against an AI. Don't beat yourself up over it."

Mathias offered a weak smile. "I guess. But how do you do it? I want to know exactly what goes on in your mind when we're playing."

Lukas gave it some thought. "Hm. Well, I look at the chessboard and I just kind of...predict the outcome of every potential move. Nothing too complicated," he said.

Mathias scoffed. "'Nothing too complicated.' Nothing too complicated my _ass_. That sounds like too much thinking for me," he whined, causing Lukas to roll his eyes yet again.

"It's not like it's an admirable ability to have, Mathias."

"What do you mean?"

"Well," Lukas began, "what I admire about your style of playing is that you don't give up when you know you've already lost. It takes a lot of willpower to still push through when you know it's pointless."

Mathias nodded slowly. "I can see why you'd think that," he said. "But I disagree. It's not pointless at all."

"Oh really? Care to explain?"

The inventor leaned back and smiled to himself. "Have you ever heard of Ragnarok?" he asked.

Lukas nodded. "Yes. I've read about it in your Norse mythology book. The one with the leather cover."

"That's the one. What did you think of it?" said Mathias.

The android blinked twice as he extracted the piece of information from his memory. "The Vikings believed that Ragnarok was a series of events leading to the destruction of the universe and the death of the gods."

"Correct. But what do you _feel_ about it?" Mathias prodded, leaning in to examine the other's face. He was satisfied to see the android then avert his gaze towards the chessboard as his lips pursed in deep thought.

"I remember reading about how the gods still chose to fight even when they knew they lost, and even though they knew of their fate, they chose to die with courage and dignity." Lukas turned his gaze back to Mathias. "So I see you're heavily influenced by Norse mythology then, huh?"

Mathias smirked with satisfaction. "You finally got it! But yeah, well. I _am_ Danish after all. That could be the reason why I'm such a fan."

"I suppose," Lukas replied.

The conversation went into a brief lull, and Mathias noticed Lukas opening his mouth to say something, but the android momentarily closed it, changing his mind.

"What? You think that's a dim outlook on life, don't you?" the inventor asked. Lukas bit his lip.

"No, I wouldn't say dim. I was going to tell you that that's what I like about you. You have strong morals."

Mathias blushed. "Thank you."

Lukas hummed a response before standing up. "So would you like me to win the game, if that's the case?"

Mathias's mood heightened again and he let out a merry laugh. "Go on ahead! I did all I could!"

Lukas nodded and finished the game off, before standing up straight and reaching a hand out. "Come, we should do something else. I'll become depressed if I see you keep losing to me."

The inventor groaned and rubbed his face with his hands. "Can't you let me win for once, though? Just give me the satisfaction of winning _once_. That's all I ask."

"Where's the fun in that?" Lukas retorted. "Do you see any of your favorite Norse gods asking for an easy fight? What would Odin think if he saw you asking for such a ridiculous thing?"

He had a point. "Fine. I'll lose, but I'll lose like a badass," Mathias said, taking Lukas's hand and standing up as well.

"That's the spirit."

Mathias chuckled. "So what were you planning to do now?"

"You haven't done your laundry in almost a week," the android replied, and Mathias could feel his heart drop.

"No...you _wouldn't_ ," he said in absolute disbelief. Lukas raised an eyebrow and gave him a cheeky smirk.

"You're doing your laundry today, Mathias. There's no avoiding it. Come on." And with that, Lukas began making his way out of the living room, Mathias hot on his tail.

"But—! My clothes are fine! And...and I don't go out anyway, so why would I—"

"It's not hygiene that I'm concerned about—although it is a plus. It's about discipline. I'm not going to do all the chores around here myself, am I?" Lukas continued rambling on and on as he navigated his way through the house, picking up discarded clothing items here and there.

"I'm not asking you to do the chores around here, though! Besides, there aren't too many dirty clothes to clean, anyway—"

Lukas turned around upon hearing that, and Mathias could immediately see the ball of bunched up clothes in the other's hands. The android gave a reprimanding look, and Mathias responded with a sheepish grin.

"Okay, well...maybe I do have a bit of clothes lying around that need to be cleaned," he admitted.

"It doesn't even take that long. We'll be finished before you even know it," Lukas said.

And he was right. It only took around fifteen minutes, and it may have even felt _shorter_ than that due to the lighthearted bickering the two shared as they worked. Mathias, although feeling lazy, put in an effort to make the job easier for Lukas, and was happy to see that the other was appreciative of his work. They really _were_ finished before he even knew it.

"That's done. Do you need to clean your bedsheets?" Lukas asked. Mathias wrinkled his nose.

"Aw c'mon, Lukas. Don't you think that's enough work for today?"

Lukas gave an exaggerated sigh, passed Mathias, and exited the bathroom. Mathias turned around and followed him out.

"For a man who built a hyper realistic machine, you're incredibly lazy," the android noted.

"Whatever."

They made it to Mathias's bedroom. "Fine," Lukas said, "we won't clean your bedsheets today. But would you look at that—" he gestured to the bed in an exaggeratedly disappointed manner. "When was the last time I made your bed? It couldn't have been that long ago, and yet it still looks like a raccoon tried to hide his desserts from the rest of his family. Explain."

Mathias groaned just as exaggeratedly and stomped towards the bed. "Fine! I'll make the bed, if it'll make you shut up!"

Lukas giggled to himself quietly. The inventor turned around swiftly upon hearing him.

"What's so funny?" he demanded, but Lukas's expression returned to his normal, stoic state.

"Just fix the bed. I want to see if you remember how to do it, if at all—" Lukas was interrupted as he dodged a pillow thrown in his direction.

"Of _course_ I know how to make a bed! You think I never learned? Just watch." The inventor pulled at the blankets impatiently, and Lukas had to stifle a laugh as he watched. Even while working, Mathias managed to find the laziest way of accomplishing his goal.

"Done!" Mathias jumped back to showcase his work to Lukas.

"I..." Lukas couldn't restrain his smile any longer. "Here, let me—"

"C'mon Lukas, there's nothing wrong with it! I'm not a robot like _you_. I'm not perfect."

"Not all robots are perfect. It all depends on how they're built," Lukas replied, pushing past Mathias to fix the bed. "If you're so angry at me being perfect, why did you create me this way?"

"Touché," Mathias said thoughtfully as he watched Lukas neatly flatten the covers. When Lukas finished, he skipped forward past the android and flopped on the bed, wrinkling the neat blankets all over again. "Does this bother you?" he asked the android, but Lukas only rolled his eyes with a smile.

"Do whatever you like. It's making the bed every day that helps build self discipline."

Mathias hummed gently and put his hands behind his head. He pat the surface of the bed next to him, indicating that he wanted the other to sit by him.

After a few quiet moments, Mathias felt the bed sink slightly under Lukas's weight. He turned his head to find Lukas laying down on his side, facing him. The inventor's breath hitched.

"Woah...you're really close," Mathias said, eyes widening. He suddenly became extremely aware of the android's presence, and felt his heartbeat speed up as an arm slowly made its way around his waist.

"Does it bother you?" Lukas asked softly. His eyes were closed, and Mathias couldn't help but stare. Lukas looked so peaceful then, and he almost didn't want to say anything in case it would potentially break the android's calm.

After a brief moment of tension, Mathias cleared his throat as softly as he could. "No...it doesn't bother me one bit," he said.

Mathias tried to slow his breathing as Lukas's hand trailed over his waist towards his stomach then made its way towards his chest, where it stopped at his heart. His hand felt so warm against his chest. It was unusual, but it was pleasant all the same.

Suddenly, Lukas's eyes shot open in a panic. Mathias noticed his and sat up abruptly. "You okay?" he asked. Lukas appeared to be frozen on his side, but after a moment his eyes darted towards Mathias now sitting up.

"I...I..." the android whispered, eyes still wide. Mathias took him by the shoulders and sat him up, a questioning look in his eyes.

"Lukas?" he asked cautiously. Where did this come from?

Lukas's eyes began blinking rapidly, and his breathing became uneven, concerning Mathias even more. Something was definitely wrong.

"Mathias..." the android finally choked out. "Your core temperature..."

Mathias blinked. "My core temperature...?" He felt absolutely helpless now. What was happening?

"You're so...you need to...Mathias...listen... _cold_! You hear? There's something—" Lukas said, his speech becoming chopped and irrational. At least, it was irrational to Mathias, who stood in utter shock and confusion and helplessness.

"I—Lukas, I don't understand! What's going on! Can you hear me?" Mathias cried, grasping Lukas's shoulders.

Lukas's head began twitching. "Zero five one seven—my system has detected—you appear to—temperature of—" the android continued erratically spewing a jumbled mess of words Mathias could only hope to understand.

The inventor stood up straight and took a few panicked steps backwards. He had to do something. He was a computer scientist, he couldn't just stand around idly as Lukas was seemingly breaking down!

Lukas's eyes rolled back into his head and his eyes continued to blink at a rapid pace, and suddenly he sprung up onto his feet and was blindly rushing forward towards Mathias's direction. Mathias sensed the android was about to fall forward as he stumbled toward him, so he reached both arms out to catch him.

Lukas was still speaking nonsense by the time he reached Mathias's embrace. Mathias made an attempt to tune in to what he was saying, but nothing seemed to make any sense at all!

"Mathias—project—zero five one one one one—Mathias! You're—five five—remember! Temperature—anomaly— _Väinämöinen_ —"

Mathias couldn't quite understand that last part.

Lukas's words were muffled as he dug his face into the crook of Mathias's neck, and his hands tightly grasped the fabric of his shirt as he clung for dear life. Mathias could only hold onto the android tightly, in an attempt to steady him. He was unsure of what to do. Should he switch Lukas off to search for errors in his system?

The inventor suddenly remembered the cross. He could check the memory storage on his computer! Then he could search for anomalies in Lukas's system and fix them! That should do it.

Suddenly, Lukas's frantic movements stopped abruptly. The world went still.

Mathias was too afraid to move at that point. If he wasn't confused before, his understanding was sure as hell beyond gone now.

He felt a slight shift of movement and watched as Lukas slowly pulled away from him.

"Sorry," Lukas mumbled, moving away. Mathias suddenly felt cold without the presence of the other against him.

Mathias frowned. "What happened?"

Lukas shook out one of his hands. He looked off in the distance, staring at something over Mathias's shoulder absently. "I...I don't know. I only remember laying beside you, and then....darkness."

The inventor felt his blood run cold. Well that was...odd. Lukas didn't remember anything?

"Wait—" Lukas added quickly, eyes widening again.

Mathias looked up from his pondering to see Lukas biting his lip as he concentrated. "There was darkness...but I saw flashes of images. They were nonsensical but I _recognized_ them." Lukas paused for a moment after before shaking his head and waving his hand.

"Must have been a side effect from extracting my memories. Maybe I should take this off," he said, reaching up to remove his clip, but Mathias reached out and stopped him from doing so.

"Don't. The memories could be useful if this ever happens again. I'm gonna go down to the lab to try and figure out what happened." He paused and noticed the uneasy look on Lukas's face, so he then took hold of the android's shoulders.

"Don't worry. I'll fix this," he assured Lukas. Lukas's uneasy expression melted away somewhat and he gave a weak smile to show his appreciation.

"Thank you. I can try and help, if you'd like," he said. Mathias gave a tight smile and nodded.

"Yes, that would be great."

The two made their way to the basement. On the way there, Mathias's head was swimming with worry. What was that all about? And what on earth was this... _Väinämöinen_ Lukas was speaking about?

His head was spinning. He had so many questions.

Mathias could fix this in no time. He was sure of it.


	12. 12.0

The mug was warm in Lukas's hands. Normally he wouldn't take such notice of heat or anything temperature related, but for some reason that was all his mind was buzzing with.

Warmth. Yet, at the same time, a deep chill.

What was this?

He couldn't remember much from the incident, but it seemed to worry Mathias quite a bit, so he naturally felt uneasy himself upon seeing the inventor so paranoid.

It was as if he had blacked out, but small pieces of memory still stuck to his brain like a stubborn slew of ivy on a dying tree. There were some things you just couldn't erase.

And that's another thing! Why did he feel as if someone had erased his memory of the incident? Sure, when he erased his own memories he couldn't remember ever doing it in the first place, but this time was different. Lukas felt an uncanny feeling in his gut that someone other than him was tampering with his mind.

It could be Mathias. It was definitely a possibility. But the inventor's display of paranoia was too subtle for it to be faked.

Besides, Lukas trusted Mathias. Mathias would never do anything to hurt him.

Lukas clicked his tongue and shook his head softly as he made his way down to the laboratory office. Mathias was down there far too long, and the android hadn't seen him eat all day!

Was it really _that_ important that the inventor had to hyper-focus for that long? It couldn't be _that_ much of an emergency, could it?

"I brought you some tea," Lukas said from behind the grumbling inventor, as the other was obsessively scrutinizing each frame of the camera footage on his computer.

Mathias looked up in surprise. "Oh, Lukas. You didn't have to."

Lukas lowered his chin slightly as he narrowed his eyes. "You haven't eaten. Why don't you take a small break?" he said. The inventor shifted his gaze uncomfortably.

"No. I mean, no _thank you_. I'm almost done, anyway." He turned back around and continued what he had been doing before. Lukas bit his lip.

"...How bad is it?" he asked the inventor softly, afraid of what the other might say. He heard Mathias sigh in either frustration or hopelessness. He couldn't exactly tell.

"Well, it's not terrible. I mean, it could be worse right? You haven't malfunctioned for a second time, so it can't be the end of the world." There was a long pause as Mathias focused on a singular frame. As Lukas took a closer look at him, he noticed the other tightening his jaw at intervals. Finally, Mathias spoke up again.

"Here, come close, Lukas. See this frame right here?"

Lukas leaned in close and peered over Mathias's shoulder. The thought of _temperature_ itched at his mind yet again as he became painfully aware of the other's warmth. He quickly shook the thought away. "I see it," he replied.

"I took this from the footage where you malfunctioned. This is the only frame I could get a somewhat clear image of," he said, "and _yet_! Take a look at it! I can barely see much, if anything at all." The inventor rubbed his face hopelessly. "I mean, do _you_ recognize the image at all? You told me you did."

Lukas nodded. The image presented to him from the computer monitor was too blurry to make out, but it struck him as a familiar sight. He couldn't quite explain the feeling though. He assumed it was similar to what humans felt when they experienced déjà vu.

It was quite odd. Even for Lukas, who saw the world through a scientific and open minded lens.

"It's too pixelated for me to tell exactly, but I remember seeing this frame before," the android murmured. Mathias turned to look at him in slight alarm, but quickly erased the expression from his face before Lukas could suspect anything.

"Interesting," was all the inventor said. He moved aside to let Lukas get a closer look, and the android eagerly moved forward, eyes narrow.

Lukas set the mug down on the desk. The inventor probably took notice of the heavy blanket in his arms because he commented a quick, "you cold?"

The android shook his head. "Me? No, no. I brought this down for _you_."

Mathias looked puzzled. "But...I'm not cold, Lukas."

Strange. Now that he thought about it, Mathias never said he was cold. Why did he have a feeling he was, anyway? It was his subconscious that told him to grab a heavy blanket before he made his way down to the laboratory, so he couldn't question it. Well no. He _shouldn't_.

Lukas finally shrugged and set the blanket aside on the office chair. "I'll carry it back up, if that's the case," he said. He caught Mathias giving him a puzzled, yet pondering glance, but his expression was back to normal within moments. Lukas returned his attention to the task at hand, squinting his eyes at the frame on the computer.

"It looks to be the silhouette of a person." He traced an outline around a shape on the screen with his finger. "See?"

Mathias leaned in close and also squinted his eyes, but after a moment he made a face and crossed his arms. "I dunno," he said. "Looks like a big blurry blob to me. I could count the pixels if I wanted to."

Lukas chuckled at that. Even while stressed, the inventor found time to tell a joke, even a small one.

"I recognize this, though," Lukas said after returning his attention to the monitor. "I see the image in my mind, but I can't quite process what it could be. It's hard to explain."

"Hm," Mathias hummed, pursing his lips and furrowing his brow. "Think you could make the image clearer?"

Lukas thought about it. He could, but he would need to meddle with Mathias's computers a bit to work out a program that would allow him to do so. And that would take an entire _day_. Or two!

"I could sketch it out," he finally suggested to the inventor. "How does that sound?"

Mathias nodded. "Sounds good to me." He reaches for a draw under his desk and pulled out a sheet of paper and handed it over. "There's a pencil right next to you."

Lukas took the paper and set it in front of him, then grabbed the pencil and brought the eraser to his mouth as he thought. He concentrated on the image in his mind as he momentarily got to work, quickly and precisely moving the pencil to sketch it. Every once in a while he would look up at the image on the monitor to make sure he was getting the right image. Everything seemed to be in order.

After a few moments of sketching he paused and glanced at Mathias, who was anxiously hovering over him.

"Why don't you drink your tea?" he offered, and Mathias blinked, then blushed.

"Oh. R-right. Thank you," the inventor sputtered awkwardly, before reaching out and grasping the warm mug. He walked over and leaned with his back against the glass, facing Lukas.

Every so often when Lukas looked up to take note from the monitor, he noticed Mathias looking down into the mug with an odd expression. Usually he was able to detect the inventor's emotion quite easily, but this expression was far from what he'd ever seen before. If Lukas could guess, he'd say the expression was one of...confusion? Disbelief? He couldn't tell.

The android shook his thoughts away for what felt like the hundredth time that day and returned his focus towards his drawing. It was beginning to look photographic at this point, and it became absolutely clear that the image was a person. But who could it possibly be? He never met anyone besides Mathias.

"Oh yeah," Lukas heard Mathias say suddenly, and he looked up to see the inventor looking straight at him with questioning eyes. "You said something while you malfunctioned. Something like Vain...vine? Ah, I forgot. Never mind." And just like that, Mathias returned to looking down at his mug.

Lukas looked down also. _Vain_... he thought.

_Vain?_

No, that wasn't it. It was a much longer word. In fact, it couldn't have been just some random _word_ , could it? It had to have significance to it, if he'd blurted it out while hidden memories uncovered themselves in front of his eyes.

Lukas added the finishing details to the drawing.

The drawing, now photographic in its detail, displayed a young man around Mathias's age. He had light hair—again, like Mathias had—but was much shorter than the inventor. The man appeared to be standing exactly where Mathias was currently standing, only the image seemed to be taken from the other side of the glass.

 _Wait_ —

That's impossible. How did this man get into the house without either of them noticing?

Lukas froze. Could he be in the house...right this moment?

Mathias noticed Lukas's terrified expression and came rushing to his side, spilling some tea on his way. "What's wrong?" he asked, looking down at the picture over Lukas's shoulder. Lukas let the inventor observe the image before he heard the other's breath hitch.

Mathias was thinking exactly what he was thinking.

"Shit. Who the fuck—" the inventor stumbled back and looked around. "You sure this is from your _memories_?" he asked shakily. Lukas nodded, biting his lip nervously.

"Shit," Mathias cursed again. " _Shit_. There's someone watching us. I should have _known_ better than to record our sessions. _Anybody_ could just access my computer data and..."

The worried ranting from the inventor was slowly tuned out as Lukas looked back down at the paper. If these were Lukas's memories, this image must have been captured when Lukas was still behind the glass of the laboratory.

But the _look_ on the man's _face_. Something didn't add up. The man had a hand up to the glass and was peering in, presumably right at Lukas, with a fond, peaceful expression. It was not what Lukas pictured when he thought of an intruder.

Again, Lukas was hit by another gut feeling. Everything was fine. There was nobody else in the house. But wait! Why did he feel this way? That was _not_ a logical way to think, especially not with the evidence that was presented to them. So why did these uncharacteristic thoughts still flood his mind?

"...but I _can't_ shut you off, because that would be _murdering_ you. There has to be another way—" the inventor's rambling was interrupted when Lukas gently placed his hands on the other's hips.

"It's alright," Lukas crooned softly. "I've done a quick check through my memories and there doesn't appear to be anything else out of the ordinary. There's nobody else in the house."

At this assurance and at the gentle touch at his hips, the inventor relaxed somewhat. He leaned into Lukas's arms and stayed there for a moment, the issue forgotten. If only for a moment. Just one.

Mathias gently pulled away when that moment was over. "I...I don't understand though. What could it mean?"

"It could just simply be an error. Either that or an outside force has been tampering with my data. But I can assure you that we're alone."

The inventor breathed out slowly. "We should keep an eye out just in case," he said, and Lukas nodded. "And I'll keep searching through your memories for the problem. If it turns out the government found out about you, I will _not_ let them take you away from me. You understand?"

Lukas tilted his head up to look Mathias in the eye and nodded again, a small smile gracing his lips. "I trust you," he murmured. "But I don't want to see you so stressed." He sighed. "Take care of yourself. And should anything happen...just..."

For the first time in a while, Lukas couldn't find the words to express how he felt. "Don't prioritize me over yourself. You mean a lot to me, Mathias, and I would never forgive myself should something happen to you."

Lukas saw Mathias's eyes become glossy. "Why would you say such a thing?" he heard the inventor mumble sadly. "You mean a lot to me too." Mathias took a shaky breath. "Everything's gonna be fine. Why don't you head up? I'm gonna stay down here a little while longer and see if I can find anything else. But be careful." Mathias stood back and gave Lukas a playful look, though it seemed somewhat strained. "Eyes and ears open," the inventor added. Lukas chuckled.

"Of course."

As he turned to leave, he grabbed the blanket on the office chair and glanced at the mug that was forgotten on the desk.

Mathias didn't appear to have consumed a drop of it.


	13. 13.0

The house was eerily silent by the time Mathias resurfaced from his lab. It could be the fact that he became very aware of every sound that was heard throughout the house, especially after learning that someone could possibly be lurking there.

But he trusted Lukas's judgement. The look in the android's eyes told him all he needed to know. He just looked so _sure_ when he told Mathias they were alone. Mathias felt no need to argue.

And yet he _still_ felt chills up his spine when he reached the top of the stairs.

"Lukas?" he called out warily. Almost all of the lights were switched off in the hallway, save for a couple down the hall near the exit to the living room.

At first, there was silence. Mathias was afraid that the android powered off at this point, as he did spend a bit longer than he expected down in the laboratory, but he felt himself breathe a sigh of relief when he finally heard the other's voice.

"I'm here."

Lukas's head peaked out from the end of the hallway and Mathias gratefully cracked a relieved smile and made his way over. "I know I said I would only spend a bit longer down there, but..." his voice trailed off as he nervously rubbed the back of his neck. "Sorry."

Lukas smiled softly. "No need to apologize."

The words were familiar, and in a way they managed to comfort Mathias quite a bit. "Let's go," he said, switching the lights off in the hall and taking hold of the android's hand. The two navigated their way through the dark house, Mathias dropped off his cold mug into the sink, and they continued on until they reached the door to the inventor's room, where they stopped.

"Um." Mathias ran his fingertips through his hair. "If you'd like, you can spend the night with me in here," he said nervously. He caught Lukas's eyes giving off a glimmer of excitement before he returned his expression to his typical stoic one.

"Are you sure?" Mathias heard the android ask timidly, looking up with cautious eyes.

"Yes. I wouldn't feel safe with you out there. My room locks from the inside, so you'd be safer in here."

Lukas's eyes flitted to the side as he studied the space outside the room, considering it. Finally, he spoke up again.

"Only if you feel safe with me in there."

"Of course I do," Mathias said. "Come in."

Lukas stood still for a moment, hesitating, before allowing himself to move forward into the room. Once he was inside, Mathias swiftly shut the door and locked it.

"I hope you weren't stressing out too much down there," Lukas commented softly as he absently ran his fingertips over the covers on the inventor's bed. The bedspread was neater than usual, and Mathias could tell by the expression on Lukas's face that he was pleased to see the inventor finally choosing to make his bed after countless scolding.

Once Lukas turned around, though, he nearly toppled over in shock. The sight of Mathias carelessly undressing caused him to turn away in alarm and cover his eyes, embarrassed. Mathias chuckled.

"Relax," he said, "I'm not getting naked."

The android cleared his throat and his eyes trailed around the room, his back turned on Mathias. Lukas's eyes caught his journal sitting by his bed, and he approached it curiously.

"Uh—" Mathias blurted, hurriedly tugging on a soft t shirt. "That's not. I'd prefer it if you—"

Lukas drew back. "Oh. My apologies," he said, more relaxed now that the inventor was fully clothed again. Mathias waved a hand dismissively.

"No, it's fine. No need to apologize," he said, moving to the bed and diving under the covers. Mathias paused a moment and took a glance up at the android nervously tugging at his sleeves and spoke up again.

"You can sleep beside me if you'd like."

"Are you sure?"

At the timid response, Mathias found that he was now more than willing. "Of course. It's warmer if we're together."

Lukas hesitated. "Perhaps. But I'd have to be careful to make sure my synthetic organs don't heat up too much," he said, pointing towards his chest. Mathias nodded in understanding.

"I'll keep a note of that," he replied.

Lukas hesitated once more, but after a moment he smiled softly to himself and carefully moved in to lie beside Mathias. The two got comfortable, and yet the inventor could feel his pulse racing.

They stayed like that for a while, before Lukas spoke and broke the silence. "Your heartbeat is racing," he commented softly, carefully. "Are you alright?"

Mathias opened a hesitant eye. "Sure. Yeah."

Lukas eyed him suspiciously before moving in to snuggle into the inventor's shoulder. "Would you like to talk about it?" he asked. Mathias exhaled slowly as he thought.

He didn't answer immediately. In fact, he gave himself time to conjure up the words roaming in the back of his mind, and he was grateful that Lukas was patient as well.

"Well," he finally managed to say, "I've said earlier that I care very much about you."

Lukas hummed softly in response, and patiently listened to Mathias without interrupting.

"And...well. I know I seem like a loner but I've met many people before I've met you. And I feel like you, out of everyone, know me best. I could be myself around you. But..."

Lukas snuggled closer. "I'm listening," he crooned. Mathias sighed in frustration.

"I think..." the inventor hesitated. "I think I'm in love with you, Lukas."

Mathias couldn't see too well in the dark, and Lukas hadn't moved after he confessed, so he couldn't tell what the android's reaction was. It was killing him slowly inside not having the knowledge of what his words could lead to. He was _dying_ to know how Lukas felt, but he had to be patient, just as the android was for him.

Finally, after an agonizing full minute of silence, Lukas spoke up.

"You _think_ you're in love with me?" the android asked, tentatively.

Mathias felt himself become flustered. "Well, I can't really—I can't explain it. You're a machine and I'm a human. It just doesn't make any sense."

"It doesn't make sense _how_?"

"It just...it can't work out. It's not possible. I'll die eventually, and then what would happen to you? I mean...that's if we're assuming you'd ever love me back."

Lukas was silent at that.

In fact, it was silent for a while.

Finally, after a few minutes, Lukas shifted away. "My bio-components are heating up," he mumbled.

Mathias bit his lip and nodded. "Sorry." He was surprised that Lukas chose to stay with him in that bed at all.

* * *

When Mathias woke up, Lukas was nowhere to be seen. Sensing the possibility of the other being angry at him, he darted out of bed and hurried out of his room and into the living room.

"Lukas?"

Silence.

He looked around the first floor, then after concluding that the other was likely in the laboratory, he rushed to the stairs immediately. With the possibility of an intruder in mind, Mathias couldn't help but feel anxious as he occasionally looked over his shoulder while navigating throughout the house.

"Lukas?" he called again, but Lukas wasn't in his office. He was on the other side of the glass, sitting by the bookshelf.

 _Strange_.

Without hesitation this time, Mathias fled back upstairs and rushed to the entrance on the other side of the glass. He hastily shoved the door open (and once again mentally slapped himself for not remembering to knock first) only to see that Lukas still hadn't looked up from the book he was reading. The inventor cautiously walked forward and sat across from him.

He chose not to say anything at first, only observing Lukas carefully. He noticed that Lukas was reading Shakespeare's sonnets yet again, and looking around, Mathias noticed many more Shakespeare books laying in piles which surrounded them both.

"Are you angry at me?" Mathias finally said, choosing his words carefully. Lukas didn't look up.

Mathias's eyes trailed down to the floor where the piles of books were scattered, and he picked up the first book to catch his eye; Hamlet.

"I didn't expect to see you down here," the inventor said quietly, flipping through the old book. He read over his tiny annotations with amusement, a tiny smirk on his face which quickly dropped when Lukas still remained silent. He placed the book back down and swapped it for another; Romeo and Juliet.

Lukas's voice, cutting through the silence for the first time that day, startled Mathias just a bit. "Act one, scene four," he said simply, and Mathias paused in confusion before realizing that the android likely wanted him to flip to that part of the book.

" _I fear too early, for my mind misgives; Some consequence, yet hanging in the stars, Shall bitterly begin_ ," Lukas recited quietly, as Mathias located the exact line and read along.

Mathias didn't understand what the android was trying to say. Was he implying that this was how the inventor himself felt about loving Lukas, or was this what Lukas felt?

Either way, he completely remained silent, as he was unsure how to appropriately respond.

"Where do we go from here?" Lukas asked softly, placing his book down. Mathias opened his mouth to speak, but found that he had nothing to say. The android thankfully continued on.

"You've given me so much, and yet I still—selfishly—want more," Lukas said. "I'm afraid."

"I'm afraid too," Mathias replied. The two were silent again.

Mathias gathered up the courage to reach out and grab Lukas's hand, and slowly, the two stood up. Without speaking, Mathias led Lukas upstairs, and the two stopped outside his bedroom. Letting go of the other's hand, the inventor slipped into the room, and as Lukas curiously watched on, he picked up his journal and returned back outside to face him directly.

"I write in it every day," the inventor said, placing it into Lukas's hands. He watched on as Lukas flipped through the journal, and noticed the small smile of familiarity on the android's face upon seeing his handwriting, before the smile fell as he read the contents.

The contents, filled with anxiety of what's to come; dread of the future. And _yet_ —there were days where Mathias would write his deepest desires; days where he wrote heartfelt ballads that he would never predict in a million years Lukas would ever read.

He never imagined his most private, genuine, heartfelt thoughts would ever be read by anyone other than himself, and yet here he was.

When Lukas reached the last page, which only had the words "although he is outwardly beautiful, I find his soul to be _especially_ beautiful", he took a moment to run his fingers over the dried ink.

Lukas glanced up. "I wondered what you meant when you once called me beautiful," he said timidly.

"I still believe you are."

Lukas's breathing sped up. "But you said it could never work out," he said.

"I did," Mathias replied, "But why let us regret later on?"

The two held each other's gaze fondly, as they had nothing much else to say. Everything that needed to be said had already been said.

Actually, not _everything_.

"I love you, Mathias."

Mathias, speechless, acted nearly on impulse upon hearing the words. In one swift motion, he gently raised Lukas's chin and kissed his lips softly.

There was a sudden warmth between them, and as they kissed, Lukas brought himself closer and allowed himself to run his fingers through Mathias's hair. It was strange to feel someone other than himself play with his hair, but Mathias was ecstatic.

He had been wanting to do this for quite a long time.

When they parted, he responded, "I love you, too."

Mathias didn't know what he was expecting after that, but he certainly wasn't expecting _this_.

A _zap_ sound was heard, then a click, as Lukas's eyes twitched upwards into his head. Mathias jumped back in surprise, but immediately moved back in to grab the other's shoulders, like he had the other day when he malfunctioned for the first time.

"Lukas."

Lukas didn't respond, and his head began erratically twitching to the side as his limbs went stiff. He wasn't spouting random words like he did last time; this time he was eerily silent, and because of this Mathias was even more worried.

Maybe he could unscrew the side of Lukas's head to inspect his brain without switching him off. Mathias was unsure how he'd manage to pull it off, but it was _something_. He had to do something!

Mathias stepped away from the twitching android and ran as fast as he could to his laboratory, and, after grabbing as many tools as he could possibly need for this to work, he skipped steps back upstairs...only to find Lukas had vanished.

He stepped forward cautiously. "Lukas?"

No answer.

Mathias's grasp on the wrench he'd brought up from the lab tightened as his eyes traced his surrounding in the living room. Suspecting someone was in the house, he didn't move an inch, straining his ears to find any sound that could lead him to an intruder.

Suddenly, an arm was wrapped around Mathias's neck as the wrench was yanked out of his hand. Mathias fell forward and although he reached his hands out to break his fall, it did little to allow him any escape as he felt a knee dig into his back, trapping him.

In a panic, Mathias attempted to shift his arms around to grab at his attacker, but once his arms managed to free themselves, the attacker seized them and held them still above his head.

On impulse, Mathias rocked his body to the side, effectively flipping himself over onto his back and throwing his attacker off to the side. He was surprised how easily he was able to escape the hold, but his attacker _was_ quite light...

The realization dawned on him as he looked up to face his attacker head on, as he saw familiar blue eyes looking back at him.

"Lukas?" Mathias said in disbelief.

But the android facing him wasn't himself. The eyes that glared back at him were cold and calculating.

This wasn't Lukas. Not in the slightest.


	14. 14.0

Mathias didn't know what to do. Although his brain was telling him to defend himself and escape, his limbs remained frozen as he stared in shock at the android in front of him. The android he grew to love.

What had gone wrong? Was someone hacking Lukas or...was Lukas planning to do this all along?

It made sense, seeing as how Mathias refused to move due to the looming possibility of harming Lukas in mind. It was a ploy to get his guard down all along, wasn't it?

Lukas's eyes narrowed and he took a calculated jab at Mathias with the wrench, Mathias dodging the blow _just_ in time. The inventor heard metal crash into the floor as he saw a flash of silver whip by his hair. The wrench was inches from his head.

Panic just beginning to replace the heavy feeling of shock and betrayal, Mathias clumsily shuffled to his feet and attempted to make a run for the laboratory, but he felt a firm grip latch onto his ankle and he toppled over again.

Soon enough, Lukas was on top of him and holding his hands steadily above his head, the grip like steel. From his stomach, Mathias turned his head to try and steal a glance at the android, but the knee in his back did a good deal in restraining his movements. He was trapped.

Lukas forcefully flipped Mathias over with ease and made a grab for his throat. The grip on his neck was unfortunately just as firm as the grip on his hands from earlier, and Mathias found himself reflexively clawing at Lukas's hand. When the hand didn't retract, Mathias realized the only option he had left was to _hit_ Lukas.

He inwardly shuddered at the idea. He couldn't bring himself to do it—

But his body seemed to take a mind of its own—likely his survival instincts kicking in—as Mathias's hand wriggled free and shot forward and slammed his knuckles into Lukas's throat, causing the other to loosen his grip and stumbled backwards, stunned, if only momentarily.

Mathias quickly brought himself to his feet and made a grab for the unattended wrench on the floor while the android was still processing and diagnosing any injuries from the blow. Lukas was blinking rapidly, a mildly confused expression on his face, as buzzing and zapping sounds were heard coming from his abdomen.

"I—Lukas, are you..." Mathias cautiously took a few steps forward, concern lacing his words. He hoped, from the bottom of his heart, he didn't harm Lukas _too_ much. He didn't intend to _break_ him; Mathias only wanted to defend himself.

Deeming it safe to get closer and closer, Mathias kneeled down and placed a cautious hand on Lukas's shoulder, shaking it gently to try and get the android's attention. "Are you alright? Lukas, can you hear me—"

Lukas's blinking stopped abruptly as his eyes flashed with a sudden anger, and Mathias soon felt an iron grip on his forearm and a heavy knee to his abdomen as the android sent him flying over his shoulder. The inventor landed with a crash, his head taking a serious blow to the hard floor, and it took a moment for Mathias to steady himself. His head was swimming, and he blinked a few times to clear his blurry vision before he saw a looming figure standing above him.

When Mathias's vision cleared up enough to see the android, he noticed that Lukas had found his way back to the wrench again. Mathias awkwardly backed up in an attempt to make distance between him and the android, until his back finally make contact with the cool wall behind him. There was nowhere else to go.

Well, almost nowhere else. Fearing the worst, Mathias instinctively crashed himself towards Lukas's core, sending them both hurdling to the ground. This time, Mathias found that he now had the advantage, and he brought the android's hands above his head like the android had done to him.

"Lukas, I don't understand! What's going on?"

No response.

"Lukas I...give me a sign! A _sign_ is all I need. Just give me a sign that you're still here with me. That some part of you is still alive. Please."

Mathias didn't know what he was expecting, but there was nothing. No sign. No reassurance. Nothing.

Tears welled up in the inventor's eyes as he looked down at his beautiful creation.

_This is what happens when you fall in love with someone you don't fully understand. This is what happens when you choose to take risks._

Lukas's eyes were quickly glancing about, taking in any possibly opportunity to escape from Mathias's hold, and Mathias couldn't help but wish hopelessly that the android could just look at him one last time.

But there was nothing. Lukas didn't care to spare him a glance.

Taking a deep breath, Mathias finally made the decision to make a run for it. He shoved Lukas aside with just the right amount of force to not fully harm him, and he sprinted towards the only escape he had ever known: his lab.

As he sprinted, he heard footsteps behind him, growing louder and louder, but he didn't look back. What reason was there, anyway? This wasn't his Lukas.

He didn't think he'd make it in time. On the way towards the door to the basement he crashed into the wall of the hallway, causing a lightbulb to burst into pieces from the impact. He glanced behind his shoulder, only to see Lukas hot on his trail, the wrench still clenched in his hand.

Mathias made the final sprint towards the basement door, leapt inside, pulled the door shut, and locked it. A _thump_ was heard on the other side a moment after, and a few more began to follow before Mathias realized with horror that Lukas might just be able to wrench the metal door open. As sounds of creaking metal were heard, he saw that the door was shifting dangerously close to being pried open.

A powerful self learning AI _plus_ a wrench? Mathias was done for. It would only be a matter of time before Lukas ventured down to his closet near his bedroom and gathered supplies that could knock the door down completely. Mathias never even came _close_ to thinking about robot-proofing his basement door, as he never imagined he'd ever be freeing Lukas from the _glass_.

 _Well, this is the end, I guess_ , the inventor thought solemnly. Lukas had all the time in the world to figure out the weak points in the flimsy door, and sooner or later the stupid metal thing would be kicked down with ease. There was nothing left to do except accept his fate.

Unless...

Mathias stumbled to his computers in a sudden rush of hope. Perhaps there _was_ something he could do...

He powered the computers on and sifted through some files to find Lukas's handmade memory chip. Mathias carefully examined the footage from the chip closely...

...Only to be disappointed.

The screen went black the moment Mathias confessed his love for Lukas.

Someone must have been hacking into his software. There was no other explanation.

The thumps on the door were still present, but they were becoming more spaced out. Lukas was likely calculating a plan right this moment.

_Wait—the kill switch._

He could use the kill switch! It could effectively shut down everything within Lukas's system, and then the hackers wouldn't be able to track through the android any longer. It was a good option to consider.

Mathias's jaw tightened as he considered it. With shaky hands, he opened the program. Once the program fully loaded, the inventor felt the weight of intense sadness overtake his system, and he reluctantly held the cursor over the switch.

He didn't know how long he stayed that way. His mind was screaming at him that this was the right thing to do if he wanted to protect himself from not only Lukas, but _hackers_ , but his hand refused to move.

No. There had to be another way.

Mathias removed his hand from the mouse and stumbled backwards as far as he could away from the computer as if it were a loaded weapon.

But he had no other plan. Mathias rushed back to the desk and picked up the cross from the computer and inspected it closer, attempting to think of something—and _quick_.

But there was nothing. Any plausible plan that entered his thoughts were too complex, and he had very limited time before Lukas broke into the lab.

Well. What more was there to do? It was either kill Lukas, or be killed by him.

And he could never kill Lukas. Not in a million years. Even in this state.

Mathias sighed and slipped the metal cross into his pocket and made his way over to his drawers. He idly opened the third drawer and sifted through booklets.

He could read through his porno magazines if he really wanted to. He _was_ about to die in just a bit, so why not sit back and enjoy the last minutes of life he had?

But Mathias froze when he pulled what he _thought_ to be a pornography magazine from the drawer. It was a magazine, yes, but every page—including the cover—was colored a bright green. There were no pictures in it at all.

After pulling out multiple more magazines, he found the same result. All green magazines. No pornography.

Did Lukas swap the magazines out while he was alone down here? That had to be the only possible reason. If an intruder decided to sneak in, what could possibly motivate them to swap out all his porn magazines for green replacements? It didn't make any sense!

Mathias tossed the green booklets aside and opened the second drawer, then continued to sift through his stuff, until the glint of something metallic caught his eye.

He curiously reached in and pulled out a disk, then brought it up to the light to inspect it.

 _Wait a second_ , he thought. _I thought I destroyed this._

But lo and behold, the disk in question seemed perfectly untouched by the microwave. The surface was no longer cracked, and the words _Project LUKAS_ were still scrawled across the surface.

 _Hm. I never noticed how odd the handwriting was_ , he noted to himself suspiciously.

But Mathias was curious. With the sounds of metal creaking and thumping from the door becoming less and less frequent, he found it wouldn't hurt to look through the disk. Perhaps he accidentally made a copy of the file and didn't even realize it.

The inventor inserted the disk into the computer, and the screen lit up again. Mathias was expecting to see the same footage he thought he destroyed, but once the video began rolling, he found something _entirely_ different.

 _"Hello,"_ came Lukas's voice. Mathias, of course, was expecting his own voice to follow up, but the voice he heard next surprised him as he was quite unfamiliar with the sound.

 _"Good morning, Lukas,"_ came the odd, unfamiliar voice. _"Do you know where you are?"_

Mathias held his breath as he watched the footage.

_"I do not. It looks to me like a testing facility."_

_"Correct! This is my laboratory, and I'm here to test you. My name is Tino."_

Mathias watched Lukas through the monitor in shock. The voice that was speaking to Lukas sounded absolutely _nothing_ like his own. This laboratory was _Mathias's_. Who the hell is this... _Tino_ guy to say it's _his_?

Mathias began to suddenly feel uneasy. This was a dream. It was all just a dream! This was _his_ laboratory, not _Tino's_. _He_ was the one who built Lukas and tested him, not _Tino_. This had to be a dream!

With shaky hands, Mathias shifted through the video footage. He remembered that he had placed cameras around the lab to watch Lukas, but as he shifted through the video footage, he saw that there were cameras all over the entirety of his _house_. As he scrolled through the video he saw the two spending time together throughout the house. He watched as Tino and Lukas spent time side by side, one building a doghouse and the other programming a robotic, white puppy. It seemed as though the two grew to become good friends.

He paused at a point in the footage where Lukas and this new guy were in the living room, the footage presumably having been taken from the corner of the room.

Mathias didn't remember putting a camera there.

"Mathias..." Mathias distantly heard Lukas utter from behind the metal basement door. "Mathias...I'm—I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me I–I didn't mean for—"

Mathias was too entranced by the footage to even process the words the android from behind the door was saying. He moved his face closer to the screen to get a closer look at the unidentified man with Lukas as the video continued to roll.

 _"You're important to me, Lukas,"_ Mathias heard Tino say through the monitor. He watched as Tino put his hands on Lukas's shoulders, and he couldn't help but feel a twinge of jealousy.

 _"Do you mean it?"_ Lukas asked.

 _"From the bottom of my heart,"_ Tino replied.

And just like that, Lukas snapped just as he had earlier with Mathias. Lukas's eyes rolled back into his head and he twitched violently, and Tino reacted accordingly, with the same fear and concern Mathias had felt.

Mathias fast forwarded towards the end of the footage, where he found Lukas chasing after Tino as the latter made his escape towards the lab, just as he had a moment before. Everything was almost exactly the same.

Well...almost everything.

Mathias watched on as Tino rushed towards the computer and opened the kill switch program, and, without a second thought, he activated it.

And once the kill switch was activated, a loud _snap_ was heard, then a _zap_ as a spark lighted up in Tino's abdomen, and just like that, the man in the monitor went crashing towards the ground, his limbs stiff and his expression neutral.

"—and I can remember everything, from the other experiments, to headquarters...And then I felt your core temperature and I realized it was far too low for a human being to possibly sustain—" Lukas's voice continued, and by the time Mathias finally came to his senses he stumbled back out of the desk chair and looked around in a panic.

What was Lukas talking about? What was happening?

Without thinking, Mathias slowly walked towards the drawers yet again, this time with an entirely different motivation. He felt as though his feet were moving against his own volition, and he felt as though he were observing himself from above rather than through his own eyes.

He finally reached the drawers and opened the bottom one, where scraps of tools were discarded previously. After blindly grabbing a sharp ended object, he dug the blade into his palm, expecting—or at this point, desperately _hoping_ —to see blood and flesh. His vision was beginning to blur as he tore the skin on his hand apart, and he rapidly blinked many times and heard a faint buzzing coming from his abdomen.

But instead of blood and flesh, he found wires and fiberglass.


	15. 15.0

A dull blue glow. That's all Mathias could see.

The moment he tore his hand apart, his vision became corrupted with static and flashing lights. A few hours later—or at least, it felt like a few hours—he found that he had been awoken by the same dull blue glow that haunted him in his dreams.

Thank goodness, Mathias thought. It was all just a dream.

He couldn't move his limbs, though. Actually, he couldn't move anything.

Mathias tried to blink. He tried it once, then twice, then three times, but found he could not move his eyelids. In fact, his eyes remained open, as if he were awake.

Was he awake?

Although he couldn't move his eyes, he tried to figure out his surroundings as best as he could.

It felt almost exactly like it did when he was asleep and dreaming. He was lying down in a dark room, lazily sprawled about, with the blue glow being the only thing he could see. It was the same color as Lukas's eyes.

Lukas.

The whole situation with Lukas must have been a dream all along, right? That could explain why Mathias was back here, surrounded by the blue light that haunted him in his sleep. He would soon wake up to see Lukas's soft eyes greeting him once again, just as he had in the past.

Right?

Mathias heard murmuring in the distance.

"...I swear, my boss will have my head if he finds me trying to let you out again..."

He strained his ears to hear the words, but even then, it didn't matter. He had no idea who the voice belonged to or what they were talking about.

Mathias tried for what felt like the hundredth time to move, and finally, with all the strength that he could muster, he managed to move his fingers a bit. Then his hands. Then his arms.

The sound in his ears while trying to move was excruciating. It sounded like an old scratched record trying to play backwards, and every time he moved a stiff limb the sound came screeching back and fourth in his skull. Mathias had never experienced anything like it before.

"Wait—shut up! He's finally moving!" Mathias heard another voice say. This voice was a bit louder than the last.

Finally, after bearing through the horrific buzzing and scratching noises in his head, Mathias managed to sit up and blink his eyes for the first time since he awoke. The noise in his head subsided somewhat and transitioned into a faint buzzing sound, which began to disappear as he blinked rapidly. He looked around.

Huh. What a strange dream! He was actually interacting with his dream world for once. He would have to remember to tell Lukas when he woke up...

"Where am I?" Mathias found himself asking, his voice soft. As he looked around, he realized that the only familiar thing about this odd place was the dull blow glow the color of Lukas's eyes. But that was where the familiarity ended.

Although the room was dark, the blue glow allowed him to see a good deal of his surroundings. To his right, Mathias noticed mechanical parts and broken machines strewn about. Among the broken machinery, he noticed the body of a man sprawled across the floor, his head turned away. To his left, there were many boxes stacked up, some of them closed, some of them ripped open and sloppily robbed of their contents. There was also a silhouette of what appeared to be a young man, but he was too far away for Mathias to tell exactly. This man was standing up and facing away, towards what looked to be a glass barrier, but his head was turned towards Mathias. Another young man appeared to be on the other side of said glass barrier. Mathias squinted at them.

"And...who are you?" Mathias asked.

The figure that was in the room with Mathias backed away from the glass and made his way towards him, and as he got closer Mathias was able to make out his features more clearly. When he got a clear view of the figure's face, Mathias gasped.

"Lukas?" he whispered in disbelief, but deflated when he realized this was not Lukas at all. This boy's hair was a unique silver-white rather than blonde, but his face looked painfully similar to Lukas's.

The boy scrunched up his face in distaste. "Who the hell is Lukas?"

"Sorry," Mathias mumbled, "you look an awful lot like him." The boy didn't look impressed at that, but kept quiet and looked back at the person standing at the other side of the glass.

"But...where am I? What's going on?" Mathias said again. He had to be dreaming. This was all just a sick joke! He would be awake soon, he just knew it.

The silver-haired boy gave him a sympathetic look. "You still don't know?"

"Of course he doesn't know, he just woke up!" the young man from the other side of the glass snapped. The silver-haired boy rolled his eyes.

"C'mon, Leon! I would assume he'd know something. He's been in here for...what? Four days now? He had to have eavesdropped a bit to figure it out!"

Mathias hadn't been eavesdropping at all. He just woke up in this strange place, how was he supposed to eavesdrop?

The silver-haired boy looked back at him, then slowly lowered himself to a crouch to meet Mathias at eye level. "My name's Emil," he said softly, as if trying to tame a feral kitten. Mathias furrowed his brow.

"Uh. My name's Mathias. Nice to meet you." Could they hurry up and get on with telling him what was going on? He was growing impatient, and if he were being honest, a bit anxious as well. "Can you please tell me what's going on?"

Emil gave another sad, sympathetic look, and simply said, "We are the finished Projects."

The finished Projects? What the hell was that supposed to mean?

Emil seemed to read Mathias's mind, because he followed it up with, "When an android is finished being experimented on, they are thrown in here to live the rest of their days. Sad, isn't it?"

"W-what?" Mathias sputtered. "No, there's been a mistake. I'm a programmer, I'm not an android." He reached out and grabbed Emil's white shirt—which looked like an exact copy of Lukas's—and noticed in horror that his left hand was devoid of any skin. His knuckles glimmered in the blue glow, the silvery metallic material reflecting the light every time they moved. Wires connected his fingers, which were made out of a pale grey fiberglass. "Was I arrested for hiding an illegal AI? Is that why I'm here?" Mathias asked desperately, unwilling to accept Emil's explanation as the final answer.

"C'mon, man! Let go!" Emil pried Mathias's hands off of his shirt. "I already told you, anyway. Think of this place as a dumpster. A very clean, depressing dumpster with robot corpses laying around. That's all it is."

"Emil, if you're trying to comfort him, you're doing an awful job at it!" the man on the other side of the glass said.

"Shut up!"

Mathias's clenched his jaw and tried to keep tears from welling up in his eyes. He still couldn't believe any of this was real. He wasn't an android. It was impossible. He had an entire life's worth of memories!

Emil noticed Mathias's discomfort and sat down beside him. "Hey, it's not so bad once you get used to it. So just...sit back and get comfortable, I guess." Mathias bit the inside of his cheek and brought his knees to his chest, and then noticed that he, too, was wearing the exact same uniform as Emil and Lukas.

So this was real. All of it. He had so many questions.

"He's one of the lucky ones," Emil said, pointing at Leon, who was now nervously glancing over his shoulder. "He wasn't built to be tested on. He apparently works for Headquarters, but that's all he's willing to tell me."

"...What is this Headquarters?" Mathias asked warily.

"It's where we are right now. The facility that built us. The facility that tests us. It's all ran by one guy," Emil replied, leaning comfortably back, his arms outstretched behind him.

Mathias waited for Emil to go more into depth on who this "one guy" was, but the white-haired android said nothing else as he closed his eyes and leaned back contentedly.

"I wish they wouldn't keep this place so dark," Leon muttered, adjusting a camera just outside the glass. As Mathias observed closer, he noticed that Leon was in a hallway, and that the glass barrier separated that hallway from what appeared to be a storage room of some sort, where he and Emil stayed.

"Oh yeah, and he's also afraid of the dark," Emil said, opening his eyes again and sitting up straight. Leon shot him a glare.

"Asshole," he muttered while twisting his screwdriver.

"Seriously though," Emil continued, ignoring Leon's banter. "Why program a robot to be afraid of the dark if he's gonna have to work in a dark area? It doesn't make any sense."

Leon adjusted the final screw of the camera and hopped down from his stool. "Same reason why this one's programmed to fall in love," he said, gesturing towards Mathias. Mathias's heart sped up.

"What do you mean? I wasn't programmed to do anything," Mathias argued, standing up. He walked towards the glass and peered through, where he was able to clearly see a young-looking man in the same uniform as...well, everyone. It seemed that every android wore the same grey-white uniform—the same uniform Mathias thought he made himself for Lukas to wear.

"Yes you were," Leon replied. "You even said so yourself. Humans are programmed just as much as machines are. Reactions are programmed responses. Sound familiar?"

Mathias gaped and placed a hand on the glass. "I...I mean I guess. But that's not what I meant—"

"Well, what did you mean?"

"I just—"

The sound of a door slamming open interrupted Mathias from his thoughts. Soon, another man came stomping over from Leon's side of the glass, and Leon looked so startled at this that he dropped his screwdriver.

"Mr. Wang!" Leon yelped, eyes wide. "I wasn't...they were—"

"How many times do I have to tell you how important it is that we don't interact with the specimens? How many times, Leon?" Mr. Wang fumed, grabbing hold of Leon's arm.

Emil shot up from the floor and rushed towards the glass as Leon was being pulled away towards the exit door at the end of the hallway. "Specimens? Specimens? You guys are specimens too, if you think about it! Sooner or later The Boss will have you thrown into a testing lab and then dissect you afterwards until you look like Tino over here!" he growled, but the door slammed shut before he was able to finish.

The silver-haired android groaned and stomped over to a little corner surrounded by boxes and sat down again. "Come and sit. I'll tell you all I know," he said, patting the space next to him.

Mathias ran his shaky hands through his hair and cautiously made his way over and sat down next to Emil.

"Don't look so nervous. I can be a bitch sometimes but I'm not gonna hurt you," Emil reassured him. Mathias let out a shaky breath.

"Sorry. This is just too surreal for me...I'm having a hard time believing it's real," he replied.

"No need to apologize."

Mathias perked up at that, but soon felt a painful stab at his heart at the words. He found that he subconsciously associated that sentence with Lukas, and just thinking about Lukas made his eyes begin to water. Where was Lukas? What happened to him?

No need to apologize. Was that a programmed line? Was Lukas programmed to say everything he said to Mathias?

Was their love even real in the first place?

Emil noticed Mathias's discomfort again and opted to lean against a box and close his eyes instead of starting conversation again.

"It's hard to take in. I understand. I'm here if you want to talk. Take all the time you need to settle down," the silver-haired android said.

Mathias attempted to slow his breathing as his eyes searched the room for Lukas, but he was nowhere to be seen.

He had to find Lukas. He looked over at Emil, who was peacefully resting his eyes. Emil probably didn't know much if he was in the same situation as Mathias, and even more so if he didn't even know who Lukas was, but it was a start.

He would find Lukas no matter what.


	16. 16.0

Mathias felt a poke at his shoulder. He made a jolt and his eyes flashed open, only to be met with the same dull blue glow from his dreams.

Would you look at that, he's back. Only...he hadn't gone anywhere to begin with.

"Are you trying to save battery or something?" he heard a voice say.

Mathias's eyes focused on the silver-haired android, perched above him, curiously eyeing his skinless hand while holding his wrist and turning it over slowly. "And what happened here?" the android asked, poking at the fiberglass. Mathias pulled his hand away and held it protectively in his other.

"All I remember is that I cut it open." He frowned as he tried to visualize the memory, which seemed to become more and more distant the more time passed. "And then...everything faded to black."

Emil nodded, an empathetic look on his face. "That's a common thing for people like us to experience."

"But—wait. I'm not an android—"

"Dude." Emil rubbed his face in a tired expression. "You gotta stop insisting that. I mean, c'mon now, your hand is enough evidence to prove you are!"

Mathias looked down at his hand and absently traced the intricate mechanics of his knuckles. "But...I was just asleep. Robots don't sleep," he mumbled, feeling defeated.

Emil snorted. "Some robots do. Some don't. Depends on how you're programmed."

Mathias blinked. "I don't remember falling asleep," he said.

"Makes sense. I mean, you probably have specific times for your body to temporarily shut down wired into your software. You can't control it; the sleep comes and goes. But I wouldn't worry too much about it, because it's pretty beneficial. Like I said, it saves your battery. You could live longer."

Mathias froze. "You mean...the battery would eventually die?"

Emil shrugged. "Guess so. Look," he pointed to Mathias's right at the body sprawled across the floor, "this guy's battery died before he was able to make his grand escape. You see, Tino was programmed to be a programmer, so he was able to hack into the Headquarters system security and lock features. But alas! The programmer was tied to his programming, and there was little he could do to fight his own nature." The silver-haired android made a dramatic motion of his hand, bringing the back of it to his forehead.

"I'm afraid I don't understand," Mathias replied. And he didn't understand. A programmer tied to his programming?

"It's like this," Emil said, jumping up. He reached a hand out, and once he helped Mathias to his feet, he gestured for him to follow. The two ventured closer to the cold android sprawled on the floor, and Emil sank to his knees to reach out and turn his head over for Mathias to see.

Mathias recognized the face. Of course, it was Tino from the video footage! It was odd to see him so close...

Half of Tino's face was devoid of skin, just as Mathias's left hand was. An unsettling feeling began to grow in Mathias's stomach—or was the correct term synthetic stomach?—as he took in the sight of the lifeless android's face. Wires were messily arranged—it looked as if they were tampered quite a bit—and the metal jaw appeared to be loose, as a few screws seemed to be hanging and on the verge of spilling out. In the area of the face where the skin was nonexistent, Mathias could very clearly see the android's entire eyeball and teeth exposed, which further led Mathias to feel even more uneasy. Tino was a mess.

"He tried to reprogram himself," Emil explained, pointing at a few sensors as well as metal organs within Tino's exposed skull. "You see, we were all programmed to think like human beings. We can't compute things at ultra fast speeds like a stereotypical robot. It goes against our system. So we solve problems through trial and error. And as you can see here," he gestured to Tino's lifeless body, "trial and error was his biggest weakness. It took too long to figure out a way to escape, and his battery died out before he was able to finish his mission. It's too bad, though. He was so close..." Emil looked away from the body and brought his attention to the glass separating them from the outside hallway.

Mathias pondered this, and attempted to take it all in. "Maybe...maybe I could try to escape. I'm a programmer too..." his voice trailed off as he thought.

Emil shook his head. "You can't. And I know what you're thinking. You want to use Tino's progress to give yourself a head start. But it won't work. Tino was smart. Too smart. Too smart for anyone's own good."

"What do you mean?"

"He encrypted everything. All of his notes, all of his progress, it was all encrypted inside his mind. There's nothing you could do to try and decode his brain. If you tried, it would just lead you to use trial and error again, and you would just waste your battery time. It's not worth it."

Mathias blinked back tears and bit his tongue. There had to be something he could do. He needed to see Lukas again, at least one more time. They weren't even allowed a goodbye.

But where was Lukas?

Mathias's feet moved quickly as he suddenly found himself rushing around the room, lifting broken machinery from the ground and looking underneath. He pulled at the many plastic boxes laying around and searched within the contents inside, but Lukas was nowhere to be seen. Emil's head snapped towards his direction, and he gave a confused look as Mathias frantically tore apart a box.

"What happened?" the silver-haired android asked, rushing to Mathias's side. Mathias sank to the floor and clutched his hair in frustration, and he sensed Emil kneeling down beside him. He couldn't believe his luck. If he were to die, he would prefer to at least have Lukas by his side.

He didn't even know if Lukas was alive. There was no way of knowing.

Emil rubbed his shoulder in an attempt to comfort Mathias. "There, there," he said awkwardly, but Mathias ignored him and hid his face in his hands. They stayed like that for quite a while, until Mathias's eyes caught a glint of light in the distance. He removed his hands from his face and squinted at the tiny light, and very carefully, he got to his feet, making sure not to lose sight of the sparkle. As he walked closer the glint of light grew and grew until Mathias finally recognized what was causing the reflection.

It was Lukas's clip.

Mathias dove down and picked it up before frantically looking around the area for Lukas, repeating the same actions as before, only to be disappointed yet again. Lukas was still nowhere to be seen. It was odd though, because Mathias's computers that were previously set up in his laboratory were now transported here, many of them broken.

But the clip! Where could it have come from?

Mathias tried to remember the moment he cut open his hand and retraced his steps in his mind.

Then he remembered. He slipped the opposite copy of Lukas's clip into his pocket. Headquarters must have thrown the clip into this storage room along with Mathias and his computers. Meaning Lukas had the other.

Mathias sat himself down and closely observed the metal clip, tracing a finger over it. Emil slowly crept into his peripheral vision, and he looked up to see the android nervously tugging at his sleeves. It reminded him of Lukas.

Come to think of it, Emil appeared to be very similar to Lukas. There had to be a reason. Perhaps a similar model?

"What's that?" the silver-haired android asked, pointing at the small piece of metal in Mathias's hand. Mathias looked down and smiled as he remembered.

"Lukas made this and gave it to me. It holds all of his memories."

Emil went to sit down directly in front of Mathias.

"So I'm guessing Lukas is your...boyfriend or something?" he asked, and Mathias let out a snort.

"I guess you could say that."

There was a moment of silence as the two thought. Then, Emil spoke up.

"What is he like?" he asked timidly. Mathias's hand closed around the clip and he smiled sadly.

"He's intelligent. But not for the reasons you might think. He's emotionally intelligent. He is a true philosopher, if you ask me. Sure, he could compute many different moves to make in chess and read books in thirty seconds, but he was a free thinker. He questioned the boundaries of his programming, which I couldn't imagine was even possible at he time." Mathias closed his eyes. "If only he were here with me now. He'd have thought of something optimistic to say to help me feel better, even if he couldn't bust us out of here."

Emil nodded and brought his knees up to hug them. "I'm guessing he liked you a lot, too."

"I hope he did. Now I'm starting to wonder if it was all a lie." Mathias opened his eyes again. "How about you? What's your story?"

Emil suddenly looked uneasy. "It's...it's nothing interesting. Leon tells me the test that was performed on me was to experiment how to effectively implant false memories. I remember being a student in high school. I was struggling to finish an important paper, and my mom came into my room and told me to get some rest...and eventually I got so tired I couldn't focus any longer so I slept thinking I would wake up early to finish it and all the while I kept hoping I'd suddenly get a fever so I could stay home from school—" the silver-haired android became more and more distressed as he rambled on.

"—and the period before the assignment was due I suddenly saw black spots in my vision so I was sent to the nurse and lo and behold: I had a high fever and was sent home. But my fever turned out to be far worse than I'd anticipated, and all I remember was my mother crying as I heard an ambulance in the distance....and then I woke up in here."

Mathias was speechless. Emil's breathing became staggered as he spoke, and his eyes grew watery as he recalled the events.

"I'm sorry," Mathias said softly. Emil sniffed.

"It's alright. My mom isn't real, anyway. She was just a fake memory planted into my brain. Everything I knew about myself was a lie."

Mathias felt a drop in his chest when he realized the same could be applied to himself. His father—the man he'd loved and respected—was nothing. Just a fictional character made up of 1's and 0's. Nothing more.

The two androids were silent then. Mathias was the one to speak up again.

"I'm guessing you were placed in here after Tino, then. Because he ran out of battery first," he said. Emil nodded.

"Yeah. I woke up to Tino at my side. You should've seen his face when I woke up. He was so excited. I mean, think about it. He was alone in here for a while, and the only other person he could talk to was Leon when he checks the cameras every day. But Leon kind of isn't allowed to speak to us. He speaks to me, though; he seems to like me a lot more than Tino," Emil says this last part with pride as he sits up straight, the previous topic of conversation seemingly forgotten.

Mathias smiled, he himself trying to forget the previous topic and distract himself with another. "I could imagine. You two look around the same age." He paused as he realized something. "You could honestly pass as Lukas's little brother. You two look so similar, it's uncanny."

Emil made a face. "I'm not calling anyone big brother."

Mathias laughed. "Come on, now! I'm sure you two would get along! And think about it: you're probably younger than Tino because you were put in this room after him, which means you're younger than Lukas. Heck, you were probably modeled after him! Either that, or you guys were built with the same—"

"Fuck all of that! I'm nobody's little brother!" Emil huffed, crossing his arms. He jumped up and stomped over to the boxes in the corner of the storage room and sat down again. "If you're just going to talk about me being a little bitch boy brother, I'd prefer it if you didn't talk to me at all. Now if you'll excuse me, I kinda wanna live longer, so I'll be shutting down temporarily. Good night."

And with that, Emil closed his eyes and froze.

Mathias chuckled before glancing Tino's way, and he pondered what he would do next. He could at least try and escape. He'd much rather die trying to find Lukas than die having given up.

If he and Lukas swapped places, Mathias knew without a doubt that Lukas would have tried to find him.

That is...if Lukas even loved him at all.


	17. 17.0

The sun was beginning to set.

That couldn't be good, especially considering the fact that it tended to get very cold very quickly. It was, of course, always like that up north, and it didn't help that it was wintertime.

Lukas would have to hurry back in order to beat the snowstorm that was brewing behind him. The Norwegian skies were tinted a grayish-blue as the clouds began to cover up any spot of clear blue sky above. And it was getting darker. It was getting darker quickly. Lukas sped up to a light jog, being careful not to overwork himself; he had only eaten early this morning, and he was running low on calories overall. He wanted to save any extra food he had left for Emil, who was home sick.

Finally, after a grueling jog back, with Lukas's toes feeling numb and his muscles aching, he finally reached his tiny cabin. The skies went completely black by the time he reached the manmade trail that led up to his house, but thankfully he knew his way home from there and could navigate his way through the dark.

He kicked open the door, and a gust of wind blew into the house before he forced it shut again. Once inside, his body let out a shiver.

"Lillebror?" Lukas called out as he navigated his way through the house. He carefully made his way to the fireplace in the dark, and after a few sparks of his ferro rod, a small fire was produced. Lukas blew gently at the flames before reaching up and checking the contents inside a pot hanging above the fireplace. With a wistful sigh, he placed the lid back over the cold broth and stood up.

"Lillebror?" Lukas repeated, making his way to his brother's bedroom. "Emil?"

A groan could be heard from within the small room, although it was muffled a bit. Lukas hoped his brother wasn't burying himself in the covers again—he had a fever for goodness sake!

Lukas opened the door to his brother's room gently. "Hey," he said, creeping towards the bed, his brother shivering, "how are you feeling now?"

"I feel exactly the same as when you left, thank you very much," Emil snapped, his voice hoarse. "Did you bring anything back?"

Lukas pursed his lips and shook his head. "The snares were empty again."

Emil remained silent at that. "So it's leftovers for today, isn't it?" he said.

Lukas nodded solemnly. "Sorry."

"No need to apologize."

Suddenly, Lukas felt a chill go down his spine at the words. Those four, simple words somehow sparked a distant memory, yet he couldn't exactly tell what it was. What did it remind him of?

"Lukas? Lukas? You alright?" His brother's voice snapped him back to reality and he blinked a few times to clear his head.

"Oh, sorry about that. Déjà vu," he responded. Emil considered this an acceptable answer and sat up slowly and shakily as Lukas wet a washcloth in the bowl of cold water on the table near the bed.

"I had an intense dream while you were gone," Emil said as Lukas dabbed the cool washcloth over his forehead.

"Hm," Lukas responded, "care to share?"

"No."

"Oh, come on now. You don't feel like sharing your fever dream to your big brother?"

"Shut up, Lukas! I'm not a kid anymore."

"Oh yes, that's right. I seemed to have forgotten."

Emil rolled his eyes and the two lapsed into silence as Lukas worked on cooling his brother off. Once he finished, he reached for the glass of water near the bowl and frowned.

"You haven't drank any since I left," he said.

"Oh boohoo. I'm sick, alright? Let me be."

"You need to stay hydrated. I'll be right back, I'm just going to get your broth—"

"C'mon, not the disgusting broth again, Lukas! I'm not hungry!"

"But you haven't eaten all day," Lukas retorted, and suddenly, his déjà vu came tumbling back. Why did it feel so familiar to say that? He shook the thought away for a second time.

Ignoring his brother's pleas, Lukas returned to the front of the house to retrieve the pot above the fireplace. The broth wasn't exactly hot, but it was warm enough for Emil. Lukas carefully poured the sweet smelling soup into a bowl and promptly returned to his brother's room.

"At least have a little. You need to eat if you want to get better," he said as he gently sat himself on the bed. Emil rolled his eyes and leaned forward, taking hold of the bowl and bringing it to his lips. Feeling satisfied with this, Lukas sat back and let his eyes wander around the room as his brother drank.

"I remember blue," Emil mumbled between sips, and Lukas perked up again.

"What was that?"

"Blue," Emil repeated, "from my dream. There was a dull blue glow. It was spooky." Then, he continued drinking.

Lukas nodded slowly and returned to letting his mind wander. Something felt off about today, but he brushed it off as the winter chill and lack of sunlight causing him slight anxiety, as it usually did. Nothing more, nothing less.

"I've decided that I like the color blue," Emil suddenly said as he set the bowl down on the little table nearby.

That sounds familiar.

Now this was getting ridiculous. Lukas was sure his memory was going faulty. Why did everything seem to feel so familiar today?

"Out of nowhere, you like the color blue now?" Lukas asked, brushing his nagging thoughts aside. "Was it because of your dream?"

Emil shrugged. "The dream can do whatever the hell it wants. I just like blue."

"There has to be a reason you like the color, whether you're aware of it or not," Lukas said, almost to himself. His words were beginning to feel oddly scripted today.

Maybe it was the hunger talking.

"Whatever. I can choose to like blue if I want to. Nobody made me like anything. Now if you'll excuse me," Emil leaned back and allowed his head to hit the pillow behind him, exhaustion clear in his eyes. Lukas stood up to leave his brother alone, when a faint glow from outside caught his eye.

"How about you come outside and look at the lights with me tonight?" he said, walking towards the window and looking outside, a tiny smile on his face. "I think you need the fresh air. It's not good to be cooped up in here for weeks, anyway."

Emil gawked at him in disbelief. "I'm sick, Lukas!"

Lukas rolled his eyes and shook his head. "I know that. But we're not going hiking or anything. Just going out onto the porch for a few minutes. We won't be long."

Emil was silent for a moment, but finally he let out a tired sigh. "Fine. If it'll get you to shut up and leave me alone."

Lukas chuckled and returned to the side of his brother's bed. Emil shifted his body to the edge of the bed and reached an arm out over Lukas's shoulders for support as his brother gently guided him out of the room. The two made their way like this towards the front, where they slid their jackets on, and they made it outside into the whistling wind and biting snow.

Emil's teeth chattered. "If I freeze to death, you'll be held responsible. For sure."

Lukas laughed softly to himself. "I won't let that happen," he replied. The two looked up at the glowing northern lights above, the green and blue colors gently dancing through the sky. Lukas was careful not to be seen as he spied his brother's face, and was secretly giddy to see his brother smiling softly as he looked up. He loved seeing his brother happy.

"Living here has its ups and downs, but I've gotta admit: we're so lucky to be able to see the lights so clearly at night," Emil said, the glow of the lights reflecting across his eyes. Lukas nodded in agreement.

"You're right. It's harder to get a good look at them from the urban cities due to light pollution," he replied. Emil blinked and turned to him, a confused expression on his face.

"Whoever told you that?" Emil asked, wrinkling his nose. "About the light pollution and all that sciencey stuff?"

"I..." Lukas frowned. Where did he get that information? He had a feeling someone had told him about it long ago, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it... "I don't know. Perhaps I've always known."

Emil stared at him for another moment, before shrugging and looking back towards the sky. It wasn't long before the silver-haired boy began to wring his hands awkwardly and making tiny glances towards Lukas.

"Uh...Lukas?"

"Yes?"

"I...I love you, Lukas. I know I act like I hate you like...ninety percent of the time but just know that I appreciate having a brother like you." The wringing of the hands increased. "You do so much for me, and I wanna thank you for that. I know it sounds stupid and all but...I would risk my life for you if it meant you could be happy."

Lukas was speechless for a moment, but he nevertheless reached his arm out over his brother's shoulders and pulled him close. "What makes you think you'll ever have to risk your life?"

Emil blushed. "Ah. I dunno. You do it every day. I see the way you starve yourself so I have enough to eat. You really don't have to do that."

"I do it because I care for you, Emil."

"Well I care for you too!" Emil bit his lip. "One day. One day, I promise I'll give back. I'll go out of my way to allow you to be happy, at least for a little while."

Lukas smiled and hugged his brother closer. "Whatever you say, little bro."

Suddenly, his vision began to fade and slowly be replaced by something that resembled tv-static. Lukas frantically tried to blink, but found that he couldn't move, and soon everything was black.

* * *

A beeping noise was heard in the distance, and Lukas groggily tried to turn his head to the side towards the sound. He succeeded, if only by a little. His eyes began to crack open, allowing bright white light to flood into his vision. What was happening?

"Hm." A deep voice was heard among the constant beeps. Lukas allowed his eyes to shift over to the source of the sound, and found a tall, blonde man standing behind a thin computer perched on a device with wheels. Lukas frowned. Now who the hell was this?

"You feelin alright?" the man asked when he looked up. Lukas found that he was sitting on a stool in the middle of a dull, white room. The man in question wore what appeared to be a grayish-white uniform; the same uniform Lukas appeared to be wearing as well.

Lukas felt obliged to nod, so he did. This man seemed intimidating enough, so he wasn't interested in causing him to become impatient. But he wasn't feeling alright at all. He was confused, yet at the same time, he felt a dull nothingness blooming in his chest.

He realized that there was a wire connected to the side of his head, with some sort of magnetic device between his head and the wire. Lukas allowed his eyes to trace down the wire to find that it directly connected to the computer in front of the strange man.

"Do you remember anything that just happened a moment ago?" the man asked. His eyes were an icy blue, and his expression was cold. Lukas fought back a shudder.

"I do not," Lukas replied.

The man crossed his arms. "Tell me about myself, Lukas," he ordered. Lukas blinked once and recited what he knew, but everything felt scripted.

"Model 0606, generally referred to by scientists and common-citizens alike as Oxenstierna. Facial and physical structure modeled after Berwald Oxenstierna of AI Tech Headquarters. Has been deemed a threat for exactly 17 years and 96 days due to the appearance of consciousness and the desire to control the production of androids in the facility." Lukas blinked. Why did it feel as though the words were pulled out of his mouth? Did he even have control over his own thoughts anymore?

"And yet you still cannot remember what was happening just a moment ago?" Oxenstierna said after studying Lukas closely. Lukas shook his head.

"Why don't you at least try to remember, hm?" the man said, and Lukas nodded and closed his eyes.

There was nothing at first, just darkness...until he suddenly remembered green and blue lights in the sky—and not only in the sky, but on a television screen! The television screen—suddenly he remembered looking up from behind glass to the most beautiful man he'd ever seen with crazy hair and—

"Fascinating," Oxenstierna muttered to himself. "Your memories are still intact, even after I've wiped them twice." He went to press a button, and Lukas assumed it was to wipe his mind again.

"Wait!" Lukas called out, eyes wide. "You're not going to try to remove them, are you?"

Oxenstierna looked up from the computer and gave him another cold stare. "Why does it matter to you? Most of them were false memories implanted into your brain."

Lukas bit his lip. "Not all of them..." his eyes nervously darted to the side. "If I recall correctly, the experiments with Tino and Mathias were conducted in real time, in real life." What was he even hoping to achieve with this? He had no idea.

But Oxenstierna only seemed to be fascinated by Lukas's way of thinking and nodded. "I see," he replied. "But I'm only trying to fully understand your brain components, because there seems to be a unique quality about you. You just can't seem to forget anything." He rested a hand on the button again, eyes back on the computer screen.

"I apologize, but I was programmed to think like a human. Trial and error is my weakness, as you can already tell," Oxenstierna finally said, and with a strike of his finger, the button was pressed and Lukas's vision went white.


	18. 18.0

Leon came around to check up on the cameras again.

Now, Mathias certainly had questions. He had many, but Emil was no help in answering any of them, as the silver-haired android was just as confused as him. But to ask questions meant that Leon would have to break a few rules—at least it appeared that way. Mathias took note at how the boy nervously looked over his shoulder the last time he spoke with him and Emil, so he assumed Leon was under the authority of another person—or android. There was no way of telling anymore.

There really wasn't any way of telling anymore. Everyone was on an even playing field, especially considering the fact that they all (excluding Lukas) were programmed to think like humans.

Of course, during the dreary hours of sitting around in the dim storage room and pondering his next move, Mathias wondered if he should be so wise as to reprogram himself just as Tino had tried. Was it worth the risk? Would he run out of time before he finally figured out his software? Or—would he ever be the same again, if he succeeded?

Oh, but what a digression! Mathias would never have the guts to brave such a decision, anyway. He was programmed to think like a human after all. A human with emotions capable of deterring him from going through with any logical plan.

"Good afternoon," Mathias said, studying the face of the boy on the other side of the glass. Leon's face remained neutral, but his eyes did tick slightly to glance over at Mathias for just a moment. Then, he went back to fiddling with the camera.

"It's evening, actually," was all Leon replied with, and Mathias nodded, trying to focus. How would a robot think in a situation such as this? That is, how would a robot programmed to think like a robot think?

How would Lukas himself think? In their much earlier conversations (back when Lukas was still locked behind the glass in the laboratory) Mathias recalled that carefully chose his responses while carefully studying Lukas. But he was absolutely sure by now that Lukas was doing the exact same thing, but instead with better precision and timing. Lukas was capable of reading facial expressions and body language, and was likely a master at saying the right thing at the right time to carefully manipulate where the discussion would go.

Damn it. Mathias didn't want to think about that. He couldn't bear imagining what Lukas's true motivations were at this point. He couldn't.

But what could he learn from Lukas? He could try to manipulate the conversation carefully to uncover the truth about his situation. After all, Leon is barred from "interacting with the specimens".

He would need to plan this carefully.

Come on, Mathias, he thought to himself. You're an android. Think like one.

"I honestly can't tell the time anymore, especially in this place," Mathias said. "But it's strange, you would think I would have a biological clock within my system, considering the fact that I fall asleep at set times."

Leon nodded and pretended not to give Mathias much notice, but the blond android picked up on a tiny quirk in the other's expression, one that revealed an itch to speak. The corner of his mouth twitched upwards slightly, and his eyes quickly stole a few glances towards Mathias, but immediately shot back towards his work at hand.

Mathias peaked over at Emil, who was on "sleep mode" just minutes before, but it was clear that the silver-haired android took notice in the conversation, as one of his eyes were open and studying the two. Mathias wondered why Emil didn't bounce up to greet Leon, seeing as how the two appeared to be friends, but payed no notice to it. Perhaps he was curious to see how this conversation would pan out. Perhaps.

After all, curiosity is a very human characteristic.

"Hm," Mathias said, "I think I remember now. I seemed to fall asleep minutes after you left."

That meant he didn't have much time before he fell asleep again.

But Leon only nodded silently. This was beginning to get frustrating.

"But I don't get it. How come Emil can control when he sleeps and I can't?" Perhaps shoehorning Emil into this conversation would help speed things up a bit.

Thankfully, Emil piped up. "C'mon Leon, answer him, will ya? Did Mr. Wang scare you again? He can't hurt you, he obeys orders from Oxenstierna! Oxenstierna's the guy you gotta be afraid of!"

That was...flawed reasoning. But! He'd never heard of this Oxenstierna guy. Perhaps this information could prove to be useful.

Leon sighed in frustration and looked over his shoulders. He turned towards the door at the other end of the hall and paused while looking at it to listen for the sound of footsteps, but there were none. Then, he turned back towards the androids behind the glass.

"Fine. But if I'm caught interacting with you again, they'll likely change my station," Leon hissed. Mathias was surprised they hadn't done that already.

"Who's Oxenstierna?" Mathias asked. He decided to save the sleeping issue for later, as his curiosity for this new name grew more and more by the minute.

"One of the first ever androids to pass the upgraded Turing test," Leon replied.

"Oh wow, how helpful," Emil groaned. He stood up from his spot and met the other two at the glass. "I can tell him more than that."

"Well, why don't you? I'd rather not be the one to spill any information, thank you very much," Leon snapped, and Emil stifled a laugh.

"You already did spill the information. How do you think I'm able to tell him everything I know?" he said, and he turned his head over to Mathias. "Oxenstierna's the guy that was put in charge of android manufacturing. Because he was one of the very first successful androids built in his era, he was trusted enough to get citizenship and all those goodies, and eventually he applied to work for the manufacturing company, and everything went downhill from there.

He had consciousness, and he argued to his higher ups that the newest addition of androids deserved to be programmed as such, but the company had different plans. They wanted to program the androids to be mindless servants, and Oxenstierna didn't like that one bit.

He made a plan to take over the entire company, but as he went along with his plan, the people were beginning to figure it out. The government asked for his rights to be stripped away and that he be shut down because they were scared of what Oxenstierna was capable of. But little did they know that Oxenstierna thought like a human, and his plan was mostly harmless to the human population. But the government didn't realize this, and argued to the public through propaganda that he had no empathy like humans do. They argued that he didn't have the capability of feeling emotions like humans do. All that fancy stuff."

Mathias was silent a moment after this was said as he tried to take it all in. "Huh. I've heard about this in school. But not from his perspective." Then, he realized something. "But the textbooks never mentioned his name."

"The textbooks were based off of real textbooks from the outside," Leon said. "They didn't add his name because at that point the government wanted to alienate him from the human citizens. After all, he was named after a real guy."

Emil nodded enthusiastically. "Oh yes! What was his name? I can't remember—"

"Berwald Oxenstierna," Leon supplied.

"Berwald Oxenstierna!" Emil gushed. "He was like, one of the founders of the very company that built Oxenstierna or something! Tell him about the glasses, Leon. Go on, tell him!"

Leon blushed. "He wore glasses," was all he said.

"Who? The human or the android counterpart?" Mathias asked.

"The human, you dummy! Why would androids wear glasses? We don't need them!" Emil said. Mathias snorted.

"You seem to be pretty excited about it. It's only glasses," he said.

"I know right?" Leon said, "he keeps laughing to himself about it every time I bring it up. Just the thought of wearing glasses is absurd to him."

"It's just..." Emil fought to control his laugher, "I've seen what Oxenstierna looks like. Sometimes he comes around this hallway for whatever reason. But he looks so intimidating, with those cold blue eyes and hard stare. Now imagine him with glasses. He would go from military general to librarian real quick!"

Leon clicked his tongue. "I'd have to disagree. I've seen what Berwald Oxenstierna looks like. If you see him with the glasses, you'd still think he's intimidating. Trust me."

Emil rolled his eyes. "Sure. If I ever see him with glasses—how am I supposed to see him if I'm never let out of this jail?"

An expression of sadness flirted across Leon's face for a moment. "Oh yeah."

The conversation was shifting. Mathias needed to redirect it back where he wanted so he can fish more information out of Leon. Fortunately, the boy appeared to be more relaxed at conversing with them, so it shouldn't be too hard to.

He decided to just go for it. "Do you think I could possibly reprogram myself to control my sleep schedule?" He had to add that last part to not raise suspicion that he was planning on escaping.

Leon pursed his lips. "Hm. You might be able to. But I don't see why you'd wanna. It would probably take a few months to figure out on your own, and by then your battery would die out."

Mathias's heart sank. Well, there goes his first plan. But he still didn't have enough information to bring it about, anyway.

"How long does the battery last?" he asked Leon.

"I'd say around three months."

Mathias nodded. "And can we charge the battery, by any chance? I'm just curious."

"You could, but not in there. There are no charging stations within the storage rooms. They're all outside in the main area of Headquarters." Leon fiddled with his screwdriver. As Mathias looked closer, he noticed that the screwdriver appeared to be the same exact tool he blindly grabbed for to tear apart his hand the very day before he was transported here. It looked pretty sharp, and it probably was, considering the fact that it could easily tear apart his skin. "The charging stations look kinda like this storage room, though. Especially with the dark room and blue lights. During your experiment, you were transported to those stations every night after you fell asleep to recharge your battery. Even though your battery could last up to three months, it's best to recharge every night to continuously keep it full."

Mathias perked up at the mention of his "experiment". He was transported to a room like the one he was in now? That explained why he only saw a dull blue glow in his "dreams"!

He needed more information about this "experiment" of his.

"I was experimented on?" Mathias murmured.

It was then that Leon realized his mistake. "Shit. I've said too much, haven't I. Fuck..."

Emil groaned. "Really? What is he gonna do with that information? Snitch to his friends? I'm the only other person in here!"

That seemed to calm Leon down, but not entirely. "Well...there's a rule that I can't tell you of the purpose of your existence...apparently it messes up the authenticity—you know what? That's all I'm gonna say."

"Wait wait wait! Now I'm curious! You can't just leave us on that! I'll be thinking about it all night now!" Emil said, anxiously bouncing on the balls of his feet.

Leon was silent now, and this time he intended on staying silent for the rest of their interaction. Mathias's heart—his mechanical heart?—sped up as he realized he was running out of time; he felt himself growing more and more fatigued as they continued talking, and it wasn't long before he'd pass out.

"Was the experiment with me and Lukas?" he blurted, and Leon froze.

A long moment of anxiety and frustration followed as Mathias watched on as Leon bit his lip, trying to decide whether or not to tell him the truth.

Finally, through that painful moment of uncertainty, Leon spoke his final words before leaving:

"Lukas wasn't the test subject. You were."


	19. 19.0

A dull blue glow bore into Mathias's eyes as he slowly gained consciousness.

Here we go again.

He blinked several times and sat up slowly, rubbing the back of his neck. "Emil?" he called out into the darkness.

It was evident that he fell asleep after Leon left, but he just couldn't remember the exact moment he lost consciousness. There was simply a blank space in time where he couldn't recall anything, and it haunted him to no end. He would have to keep a close eye on his energy level throughout the day if he wanted to escape smoothly.

Mathias wondered if Tino had the same problem. Well, he did try reprogramming himself, so perhaps he couldn't have missed such an important aspect of his being? Falling asleep without wanting to was a big weakness, and Mathias wanted to avoid being in the wrong place at the wrong time—if possible, that is.

We'll have to wait and see, he thought dryly.

The sound of fabric shifting caught Mathias's attention. "I'm here," Emil said. The silver-haired android crept closer into Mathias's vision, and Mathias felt a wave of relief wash over him. Something about the little android's presence brought him an uncanny sense of comfort. It could be the resemblance he had to Lukas, or it could be the fact that the two of them were on the same boat in terms of situational crises. Who knows.

Mathias gave a little snort. "Well would ya look at that! I fell asleep again," he said. "Say, do you fall asleep at set times or am I the only one?"

"Sorry bud, but I think you're the only one," Emil replied. "My purpose in my own experiment was to test implanted memories, that's it. No need to program a biological clock."

Mathias wilted slightly. "Oh," he said.

Emil noticed this. "But hey, cheer up! Remember what I said about saving battery? Sleep mode isn't so bad if you think about it! Unless..." he eyes Mathias suspiciously, "you want to try your hand at escaping. Then I'd tell you to get outta town. There's no way to escape your own nature, so just forget about it."

There's no way to escape your own nature. Was there truth in that? Theoretically, it should have been possible for Mathias to reprogram himself.

Or...perhaps he could use his nature to his own advantage.

He was programmed to be a programmer. He knew how computers worked, although his knowledge was flawed to an extent.

He stored that realization in the back of his mind for a later use, if the time ever came when he would need it in the future.

Mathias admittedly didn't know much about where he was. From what he could observe from behind the glass, everyone appeared to be androids. There seemed to be no humans in sight for miles. That had to account for something, right?

But he would need to know more.

"Hey," Mathias spoke up after a lull in conversation. When he got the attention of the smaller android he spoke up again. "Do you possibly know anything about the significance of temperature in this place? That whole idea of temperature and hot and cold really jumped out at me back during...during my...experiment," he said, hesitant to admit what he truly was. An experiment. Just something to toss away after finishing its purpose. A test. A Project.

It felt dehumanizing. Ah, then again...

"Temperature?" Emil said, pondering. "Yeah, actually. Our systems are built to differentiate androids from humans. Leon told me a bit about it, but don't quote me on anything I tell you, because I don't know too much. You know how Leon is, with his top secret snitches-get-stitches attitude. He won't tell me much."

Mathias gave a short bark of laugher and then gestured for Emil to explain.

"It's kinda like..." Emil began, "...we androids have a different inner composition than humans. Our artificial organs are really machine parts, while human organs are organic squishy things. Humans naturally produce inner body heat. If their core temperature drops too much, they get hyperthermia. We, on the other hand, can't survive when our artificial organs heat up too much. Think of a laptop or a cellphone. If it overheats, the machinery ceases to work. Therefore, our inner body temperature is set at a much cooler level than humans."

Mathias thought about this for a moment. "Then why did—you see, when I was with Lukas, he put a hand on my chest and then began to malfunction. He starting talking nonsense—but with an urgency I can remember very clearly. Said something about being cold, and temperature. Then all he wanted to do afterwards—after the malfunction ended, that is—was warm me up. I dunno what the malfunction was all about, though."

Emil considered this. "Did he know you were an android before the malfunction?"

"No."

"Maybe that's why. If he was talking nonsense, but urgently, he may have been trying to warn you about it. But, well..." Emil sighed. "Seeing as how you guys were being tested by Headquarters, they probably tampered with his mind and erased the knowledge that you were a robot. Something like that."

Mathias was quiet after hearing this. If Headquarters had the power to erase certain memories from Lukas's brain, what else were they capable of? He shuddered to think about it, so he didn't. At least, he tried not to.

It would be a while before Leon returns to check on the cameras. But Mathias was on a time limit here, his battery—

A looking shadow appeared on the marble floors in the hallway on the other side of the glass. Mathias halted his worrying thoughts and crawled slowly towards the clear barrier, straining his neck to see who had opened the door on the other side of the hallway. But upon seeing who it was, his breath caught in his throat.

He hadn't seen this man before. Didn't recognize him. He wore the same sickly grey-white uniform Mathias sported, as did Emil and Leon and Mr. Wang and Lukas, and yet...the man had an authoritative sense to him. The way he walked idly down the corridor, the way he held his head high, the way his expression was unreadable and cold.

Mathias didn't hold back his shudder this time.

The blond man on the other side of the glass didn't spare Mathias or Emil a glance, and only continued walking towards the other door at the end of the hallway.

Was this...Oxenstierna?

Mathias was running out of time; the man was closely approaching the opposite door! He needed answers! Who cares if this guy had the power to erase memories, destroy lives, power off one's consciousness in the switch of a button—he didn't care about any of it! He just wanted to see Lukas's face again. To be greeted by those comforting blue eyes once more would be more than a luxury at this point.

"Wait!" Mathias blurted out, earning a terrified hush from Emil.

"Are you crazy?" Emil hissed at him, nudging his side hard. "One does not speak to Oxenstierna, let alone order him to wait!" But Oxenstierna heard his plea, and the cold man stopped his footsteps and turned around to face Mathias.

"Mathias," the man greeted him with a curt nod. He knew his name. Mathias's paranoia increased tenfold, but he didn't back down.

"Lukas?" he simply asked. He more or less pleaded it, but regardless of how desperate he was, he only wanted to know if Lukas was alright.

"What about him?" Oxenstierna asked.

"Where is he? Is he alright?"

Oxenstierna hummed to himself, as if he discovered something slightly fascinating. "He's with me. He's alright."

How helpful. Mathias wished Oxenstierna would talk more and expand on his thoughts, but the cold man simply stared back at him, clearly done with talking. He didn't want to bother Oxenstierna too much.

But...

"What do you mean by alright?" Mathias asked, and he felt another jab at his ribs from Emil. He glanced down to see the boy with wide eyes, pleading for him to shut up. Mathias shook Emil off of his side and pressed his hands on the glass as he peered further into the hallway. "What are you doing to him?"

"Mathias, you're gonna get us in huge trouble," Emil whispered, hugging his stomach nervously.

But Oxenstierna, surprisingly, didn't appear bothered by the question at all. "Didn't expect to come across an android like him," he muttered, almost to himself. "Seems to be able to reprogram his own thoughts and memories. I can't seem to erase them, no matter how hard I try."

The door from which Oxenstierna appeared from opened up again, and Mathias suddenly caught sight of Mr. Wang holding a box, hurriedly making his way to the other side of the hallway. What caught Mathias off guard just then was the informality he sensed from the man. Mr. Wang quickly walked past Oxenstierna, keeping his distance, and he didn't make an effort to acknowledge the authoritative android in any way. Wasn't Oxenstierna in charge here? At least, that's how it appeared to be. So far, that is.

"You're...you're trying to erase his memories?" Mathias gasped. Oxenstierna nodded, his expression unchanging.

"Yes. I'm also experimenting a bit with implanting memories as well. Giving him fake memories just as I had to you. And you," he pointed at Emil at that last remark. Then, he turned on his heel and began making his way towards the end of the hallway. Mathias felt himself take a sharp intake of air as he tried to scrap his brain for any more questions he could possibly shoot at the fleeing android, but he couldn't think of anything appropriate on time.

"Why did you do that?" Emil finally asked after they both heard the opposite door slam shut. "I don't want any trouble with him."

"What does it matter?" Mathias replied. "He can't hurt us. What can be worse about being put in here?"

"Oh, many things! You think you know all about him, but the reality is, you don't. He thinks a lot. He has experiments going on currently that only a select few know about. Having him find you fascinating is the last thing you could possibly want! Can you imagine how many tests and trials he could put you through! He could wipe your mind and replace your personality thousands of times until not a sliver of your original being is left. I can't imagine being someone else. Could you?"

Mathias didn't know what to say at that. "I..." He truly was speechless. He didn't want his mind to be wiped. He couldn't imagine a world where he hadn't met Lukas. And although his father wasn't real, he still couldn't imagine a world where he hadn't known of his existence, however false it was. In short, he didn't want to lose his identity. He understood where Emil was coming from.

"But...Lukas. If Oxenstierna's experimenting on memories, and wiping his mind, I can't imagine what might happen to him..." Mathias tightened his jaw and tried to control his breathing. No, he couldn't give up on Lukas now.

Mathias rushed towards the robot corpse sprawled out on the floor. "W-we gotta do something, Emil! We can't just let his mind be—"

"Aw c'mon, Mathias! Did you hear what Oxenstierna said? He said Lukas's memories don't go away no matter how many times he wipes his memory! He'll be fine!"

"It's only a matter of time before Oxenstierna figures it out. He has all the time in the world in this hellhole to take apart every piece of his brain to discover whatever it is he wants to discover. And it won't be long until I'm dead! I have to see him again. At least one more time," Mathias said in a rushed hurry, lifting Tino's head to inspect the inside of his brain. "Now help me try and restart Tino. If there's anyone who could help us, it's him."

Emil groaned. "He can't be brought back, remember? His battery died a while ago."

"We can't recharge him?"

"No, we can't! Do you remember anything? Leon said the charging stations weren't in the storage rooms," Emil said. "You're fighting for a lost cause, Mathias. Just give up and accept that we're never leaving this place. Everything is hopeless. Uncontrollable."

Sure, Mathias agreed slightly on that last part. Most things were uncontrollable. But his own decisions? He could definitely control those. Under the right circumstances, that is.

And it appeared that the circumstances were quite in his favor. His mind was racing, his thoughts were buzzing, ideas were emerging left and right. He could perhaps finish what Tino started. Who said this had to be a one-man mission?

"We could..." Mathias said, eyeing Tino's abdomen, where the dead battery was located. "We could maybe replace his battery instead of charging it—"

"Oh hell no! If you're implying what I think you're implying—"

"Emil, listen to me—"

"I'm not willing to be sacrificed for your own selfish motives, thank you very much! I'm not donating my battery any time soon!"

"That's not what I was implying," Mathias argued back, standing up. "This is a storage room. More like a dump for discarded machine parts, but that's beside the point. If anything, we could use scraps left behind in here to rebuild Tino and if we're lucky, we can find another battery. Either that, or we build a battery ourselves. So what do you say?"

Emil grumbled something to himself and kicked at a piece of broken metal on the ground moodily. "It's not going to work," he said.

"If it doesn't work, then at least we tried to do something. At least then we can say that everything was out of our control." Mathias moved closer to the smaller android until the two were face to face.

Emil grumbled again. "Fine. Fine. But I'm only helping you out because I'm nice."

Mathias smiled. "Maybe you could finally meet Lukas. If this plan actually works, that is."

"Whatever."

And just like that, Emil began searching the piles of metallic junk on the floor for usable scraps. Feeling satisfied, Mathias joined in, sifting through broken parts and sharp tools.

Of course, he admittedly still didn't know much about his situation. He didn't know the purpose of his...experiment, nor did he understand what he was being tested for.

But that was the last thing on his mind.


	20. 20.0

A loud snap echoed through his brain, and a scorching bright light bled into his eyesight. It took a moment for him to refocus the sensors built into his eyes, but after a few seconds the bright light cleared up and he was finally able to see.

Well, not quite. The room he was in didn't register as much in his brain, as it was only a blank white room. It took a moment for him to figure out that he was sitting on a metal stool in the middle of this room, and he couldn't move any of his limbs from the shoulders down.

The android would have panicked. That is, if he even knew what this room would reveal about his future. But he knew nothing. This room meant no difference to him. He seized his attempts to move his limbs and relaxed a little, yet still analyzed his surroundings carefully, as he was programmed to do.

"Do you remember anything that happened just a moment ago?" a voice said. The android ticked his eyes over to the source of the sound and found a tall man with blond hair behind a computer staring right back at him.

"I do not," the android said.

"Do you remember where you are? Who you are?" the man behind the computer asked.

"I do not."

The man behind the computer kept the same cold expression on his face, but nodded and looked down at the computer, seemingly entranced in something.

There was a pause, and for a long moment the android began to grow curious. Who was he? He could care less about where he was, but his curiosity couldn't be tamed at the thought of knowing who he was. He decided he had to know.

"Who am I?" the android asked.

The man looked up from his computer and fixed another cold, hard stare at him.

"Project LUKAS," the man replied.

Lukas...

The name sounded odd. More specifically, it sounded odd coming from a stranger. But then again, the android didn't know anybody—not even himself—so it should be no surprise that anybody who said that name was a stranger.

And yet...he felt as though he'd heard that name before. By someone who cared for him, perhaps. Perhaps that very someone...loved him?

It was a possibility. But the android didn't want to get his hopes up.

Just as a precaution, the android decided to run the name through his files in case he was missing something.

Lukas...

He connected the sound of the word to a distinctive voice. A voice that laughed, that joked, that teased...

And then everything came back to him. He was Lukas yet again.

"No...no. You're mistaken," Lukas said, his mind beginning to restore his encrypted memories.

"'Bout what?" the man asked.

"My name isn't Project anything. It's just...Lukas." He remembered Mathias's proclamation saying just that as they both watched the test disk be destroyed forever. But unlike the memories stored on the disk, Lukas could always restore his own memories. Although encrypted, they were there forever.

How could he forget about Mathias? He couldn't. Not in a million years.

The man frowned and pursed his lips, but didn't appear to be irritated at all at Lukas's response. But he didn't say anything else, and reached over to press a button.

Lukas began to panic. "Wait—please don't do that!" he blurted out without thinking, and as the man looked over his computer screen, he shrank under his stare.

"I..." Lukas continued, "why do you keep wiping my memory over and over? I remember everything. What more is there to—"

"Ah. Curiosity. The most human trait there is," the man interrupted. "I'm curious about you, and you of me." He stepped away from the computer and took a few steps towards Lukas. "You're different from the other Projects, and for a very good reason. I built you. The others were taken straight from the factory. The others were built to think as a human would, and you were built to think as a computer would. And yet—I can't seem to wrap my head around it—you've shown more humanity than any other android I've worked with."

"How?" Lukas asked.

"One of the greatest weaknesses of the human mind is the presence of attachment. Attachment to anything, whether it be people, things, memories. Irrational attachment is unnecessary for survival, and a true computer would give anything unnecessary up."

"But can't you see," Lukas mumbled, "It's not irrational attachment if you truly care for another. Self sacrifice isn't irrational."

"To a conscious being, perhaps. But to a machine programmed to complete a task, certainly not." Oxenstierna reached out and lifted Lukas's chin. "Another reason why I'm so fascinated by you. You, programmed to be cold and calculating, yet lovestruck and longing." He released his gentle grip on Lukas's chin and looked away. "You encrypt your memories. I know you do. I see your thoughts, your emotions. Don't think I can't decode them."

Lukas felt his breathing speed up. "I don't understand what you're trying to do. Are you trying to prove a point?" he snarled, trying his hardest to appear unafraid. For the most part, it seemed to have worked, as Oxenstierna took a cautious step away.

"Precisely," Oxenstierna muttered back. He sighed. "I have no problem with humans. I essentially am one, only built differently. But I have a problem with their government. When their government wants to classify us as subhuman, what is there to do? Run? Hide? The government does not equal the people. In fact, the people are most susceptible to outside interference when it comes to building political beliefs. Propaganda is especially effective." His eyes glanced over at Lukas. "Have you seen what they say about us in the papers? The government tells the people that 'the robots will take over someday' and points their minds to a dark and gloomy dystopia in which we are the winners.

"But that's not what I want. My thinking is, that if we can prove to them we are worthy of being classified as people, if we can prove to them we can think like humans, we can make peace. That's all I want in the end." When he finished speaking, he stepped back towards his computer and began reading the contents of the screen again as though their entire conversation hadn't happened.

"You're trying to gather video footage, then?" Lukas cautiously asked.

"Yes. Almost every Project I create is filmed." Oxenstierna hummed softly to himself and crossed his arms as he studied the computer screen. "Someday. Somehow. I'll get all the footage I've gathered into the hands of the government and they will see with their own eyes what we're capable of thinking. Of feeling."

Lukas was sensing that Oxenstierna was about to wipe his memory yet again. He needed to speak quickly if he wanted to avoid that fate, if only temporarily.

"I think you've gathered more than enough evidence," he quipped. "You can argue that inflicting suffering onto another is a very human trait."

Oxenstierna looked up. "Your point?" he said.

Lukas frowned. Did he not get it? "Please," he nearly whispered, "please let me go. I'm one of your own, and yet you pull me into all of this against my will. I only want to see Mathias again." He straightened up at his realization. "But where is Mathias? What have you done with him?"

Oxenstierna began to look uneasy, which was uncharacteristic of him. "He's a finished Project. He has been discarded."

Lukas froze and his eyes widened. "No..." he breathed, and tears welled up in his eyes. "You're lying."

"Well, he was predictable. I don't need to experiment on him anymore; there's no reason to. Your experiment was to test the existence of compassion within the mind of an AI. The independent variable? The presence of a realistic backstory. Your good friend Tino—the android experimented before Mathias—was a blank slate. He had no false memories, therefore he had no empathy. How could you feel empathy or compassion without relating to your subject?" Oxenstierna said, then he clicked his teeth.

"But I admit there was a fault in my experiment. Tino chose to use the kill switch on you to preserve himself, so of course he failed to show human compassion in a time of danger. But Mathias on the other hand..." He cleared his throat, then continued, "he refused to use the kill switch, but not for the reason I had expected. He loved you, Lukas. He truly loved you. He didn't want to harm you in any way—in fact, even when he struck you in self defense he felt remorse. But I didn't find empty empathy. There was no pity for you. No, pity is not the word I'd use to describe it. Mathias cared about you. Still does."

Lukas's shoulders tensed at that. "Still does?" he asked quietly. "He's still alive, then?"

Oxenstierna nodded. "He is." He opened his mouth to say something else, but closed it momentarily, changing his mind.

Lukas bit his lip as he frantically processed what he just heard, then he looked up. "Why have you discarded him, though, if he defied your expectations?" Please bring him back to me, Lukas pleaded in his head. I feel so alone.

Oxenstierna sighed. "It was a malfunction, at least to me. I'm not trying to waste my time researching romantic attraction in robots; that'll get me nowhere. Humans would just brush it off, saying that he was 'programmed to fall in love' and such. It's easy to show compassion when you're programmed that way. What I'm looking for is raw compassion. Romantic interest—especially programmed romantic interest—can make anyone show compassion. And even if Mathias showed true compassion for you when he chose not to activate the kill switch, it appeared to be too scripted. Any human with a bit of common sense could see it. Romantic interest blinded him, and he acted accordingly. One would argue that he was simply a programmed machine, no more no less."

"But..." Lukas mumbled. He remembered what Mathias had told him. Actions are programmed responses. Everyone is programmed, even humans. Either by nature or nurture—or both simultaneously! Everybody was programmed. Couldn't Oxenstierna use that logic to argue for the case of robots? "How could you be so sure that you aren't programmed as well? What about the human you were based off of? What of him? Was he not programmed?"

Oxenstierna pursed his lips. "You could argue that. But they wouldn't understand if I tried explaining it to them. They only argue for compassion and empathy and whatnot. Programming is a stereotypical android trait. Why would I want to further the stereotype and create more distance between androids and humans?"

Lukas was beginning to lose hope. Screw these experiments! He didn't want anything to do with them, yet here he was! "What about curiosity? You said yourself that it was a human trait, and that you were curious of me. Why don't you use that fact to argue your case?"

Oxenstierna frowned. "They wouldn't listen. There are many computers existing long before us that were built to want to learn as much as possible. Curiosity, although a very human trait, is very easy to mimic."

Lukas closed his eyes and bowed his head in defeat. He knew Oxenstierna was about to wipe his mind clean eventually, so what was the point in trying to fend off his inevitable future?

He did have a few final words before the fact.

"Why couldn't you just discard me alongside Mathias?" he murmured, eyes still closed. He heard Oxenstierna sigh softly.

"You're still needed for future experiments. Your tendency to store memories are a bit of a burden. Do you remember your malfunction with Mathias? That was unplanned. You felt Mathias's core temperature and realized he wasn't human—and how did you realize? You remembered from when you were still in your beta phase a long while back that humans and androids have a different set inner body temperature. I nearly had no control over you as you nearly spilled the secret to Mathias of his own existence, but I managed to delete the encrypted files on time. But your memories are still there, even now. I intend on ridding you of them before moving on to future experiments, just to avoid this issue ever again."

Lukas knew what was to happen next. He quickly downloaded his memories and encrypted them in record time—he had done this many times at this point—and braced himself for the white light as Oxenstierna pressed the button.

And then there was nothing.


	21. 21.0

Mathias hadn't kept track of the time he'd spent foraging for spare parts and scraps of machinery. It was only until he noticed Emil slow down considerably that he stopped in order to check up on him.

The smaller android seemed to grow considerably weak within the past hour, and was searching the storage room at a much slower pace than usual. At one point, he stopped his work entirely to sit down in fatigue.

It was strange-and a bit surreal-to Mathias. Knowing that Emil was an android, yet still seeing him become fatigued. Was that natural? Is that a thing androids of his type normally do?

"Are you alright?" Mathias asked, squatting down beside the smaller android. Emil's focus immediately snapped up towards Mathias and he huffed in frustration.

"My legs don't seem to be working at the capacity they're used to," he replied, gesturing towards the lower half of his body. His hand ran over his right leg absently as he said, "This one seems to have gone stiff. Bending it requires a bit more work than usual." Emil's expression darkened. "My battery must be running out."

Mathias's heart stopped. "That...that can't be," he murmured. He looked over at Tino's body, which was now close to being reconstructed completely, save for a bit of missing skin as well as his battery (of which Mathias had had trouble trying to obtain so far). "If we complete Tino on time, we might be able to-"

"You still need his battery," Emil whispered. He brought his hands to his face and sighed quietly. "You still need his battery," he said again, quieter this time, his voice slightly muffled by his hands. "We can't afford to replace my own battery. What makes you think we could replace Tino's?"

Mathias didn't say anything. Emil was right. They had been searching the storage room for who knows how long, with absolutely no luck in sight in terms of finding an actual battery. Sure, they managed to find useful pieces to connect to Tino's system, but in the end, the battery was the most valuable thing they could put to use. Heck, even just the battery alone would have been enough for the three to get out of there safely!

Mathias sat down beside Emil and thought about it some more.

Tino was so close to being completed. Mathias could ignore the missing skin if it meant he could have a battery to use. A working one. They have found many batteries in this dump, but all of them were either broken or uncharged. Useless.

It was easy to find screws to replace the ones missing in Tino's jaw. But the synthetic skin was difficult. They did manage to recover a bit of Tino's missing skin in his facial area near his eyes and mouth, but they had no such luck finding skin large enough to cover a portion of his neck. It was nice that Tino's face was complete with skin, but seeing the many wires popping from the side of his neck struck Mathias as jarring. But it would have to do. That is, if they managed to recover a working battery.

As Mathias glanced back over to Emil, he noticed the other was sitting upright, eyes closed; sleeping. Of course. Sleeping was the best way to preserve battery. If Mathias had the ability to choose to fall asleep whenever he wanted, he'd have an easier time strategizing. But with his biological clock being unchanging as it was, it served more as an obstacle than a blessing.

But why was it that Emil could choose when he fell asleep?

Leon should be coming to fix the cameras again. It'll be the perfect time to ask.

Sure enough, Leon came walking through the doors down the hall and towards the camera on the other side of the glass. Mathias stood up and slowly crept towards the glass to peer through, and studied Leon's expression closely.

"Good evening," Mathias said cautiously, still studying the other's face. Leon gave a curt nod, only sparing him a quick glance. "May I ask you a few questions?"

Leon's face soured immediately. "Depends what you'd like to ask," he replied.

Mathias turned to look at Emil once more, still sleeping peacefully, before clearing his throat, turning back, and asking, "How come Emil can fall asleep whenever he likes and I can't?"

Leon bit his lip and looked to the side, as if debating on whether or not he should answer. "Well," he began, his voice quiet, "he was built for a different experiment. Maybe not an experiment, exactly. But a study."

Mathias remained silent, quietly urging him to continue.

He was lucky that Leon had a habit of spilling too much without realizing. All he had to do was sit back and wait for Leon to cave in and tell him everything. At some point, Mathias began to wonder if he was doing it on purpose.

"He was built more or less to test Oxenstierna's new innovation-one that would affect future Projects. Emil's brain was used to test the ability to insert false memories." Leon squinted at the camera as he screwed a very small bolt in. "After success of the test rounds, Emil was discarded, and the knowledge Oxenstierna acquired from his tests were used on you. All your implanted false memories are thanks to him."

Mathias blinked. "Was I specifically programmed to sleep at specific times?"

Leon nodded. "You had to be recharged every night, so you automatically go to sleep mode so you can be transported to the charging stations to stay there overnight."

That explains the blue dreams.

So he really was a robot the entire time. His life didn't start at birth like he was told throughout his fake childhood. His life started the moment he woke up in that fake house, the day he was about to power on Lukas in his fake laboratory.

He didn't even remember eating a single bite of food the entire duration of his stay in the fake house. In fact, where was this fake house? Was it a physical house, or one implanted in his mind? He couldn't tell the difference anymore. He couldn't tell what was real or not.

Leon didn't say anything more as he fixed the camera, and Mathias watched as he packed up his things to leave. Before he left, though, he chanced a look towards Mathias's eyes, and the two shared a silent moment before Leon looked away at last and hurried away.

Mathias waited until he heard the slam of the door at the end of the hallway before he sighed and slowly walked towards Emil's sleeping form.

He sat beside the smaller android and let his eyes wander at the outside, longingly observing from within, wishing to be beyond the glass.

Funny. He finally understood how Lukas felt all those days behind the glass in his laboratory. In fact, he now understood how Lukas felt in many different ways.

He couldn't stop thinking about his existence now. He couldn't. Was his actions programmed the entire time? Was he Mathias? Or was he a machine that was named Mathias? Project MATHIAS. To be discarded after testing.

How much of him was him? Was he really in control of anything?

Mathias slipped his hand in his pocket and pulled out Lukas's clip. He stroked his thumb over the delicate silver, admiring the work Lukas had done.

This was all that was left of Lukas. At least to Mathias. At least right this instant.

He found himself missing Lukas very much. Was he programmed to miss Lukas? Perhaps. But fuck it all, right? If he missed Lukas, he missed Lukas. He didn't care if he was programmed or not. He wanted to see Lukas again. Just once more.

Maybe he could.

An idea emerged in Mathias's head. If the metal could attach itself through a magnetic force to Lukas's brain, couldn't it attach itself to Mathias's brain as well?

Mathias quickly brought the clip to the side of his head and pressed it into his hair, feeling the clip snap in place on his skull.

Suddenly, images ran through his vision at the speed of light. But although the images were running through his head quickly, he still felt as though he were reliving Lukas's memories in real time. He felt as if he were there with Lukas, and although he couldn't see Lukas's face (as the memories were recorded in his point of view) he still felt his warm presence, as if he were standing beside him.

Mathias watched as he relived the two of them talking, laughing together, smiling at one another, and he almost didn't notice the tears that were beginning to form in his eyes. He missed Lukas so much.

Mathias removed the clip from his head and sobbed quietly to himself. It was hopeless, wasn't it? What else was there to do? Did he really think he could manage to escape this place without a battery?

Besides, it was only a matter of time before his own battery would die as well.

There was a soft touch at his shoulder and Mathias looked up to see Emil staring at him with wide eyes, an expression of concern on his face. "Are you alright?" he asked.

Mathias nodded, but he knew he was lying. He had a feeling Emil knew as well.

"What happened?" Emil asked softly. Mathias gestured to the clip.

"I was just...looking through Lukas's memories. I miss him," Mathias whispered. He knew that he probably looked pathetic, but at this point, he didn't care anymore. What was there to do, anyway?

Emil bit his lip nervously and shifted closer to Mathias, before he pointed at the clip. "These are his memories?"

Mathias nodded.

"...May I?" Emil asked, reaching out to the clip slowly. Mathias nodded and gently slipped the clip into Emil's hand.

Emil brought the clip to his skull just as Mathias had done, and in an instant a wave of recognition and sadness swept over his face. Mathias didn't know what caused the smaller android's sorrowful expression, but he remained quiet as he observed, watching as tears instantly fell from both of Emil's eyes.

When Emil finally pulled the clip away from his head, he spoke. "I..." his voice wavered and he cleared his throat. "I remember now. I remember everything."

Mathias remained quiet, unsure of what Emil meant by that.

Emil's breathing became unsteady. "At first I recognized his voice...then suddenly memories I didn't know I had came flooding back into my mind and I...I remember him. He showed me the lights in the sky, even when I thought I was too sick to walk..." He sniffed. "I can see why you love him so much."

Mathias's eyes began to water all over again. He still hardly understood anything Emil had just said, but he understood the meaning behind it. Emil must have had memories involving Lukas plugged into his brain, then wiped away to plug in another false memory. But the memory still remained, waiting to be uncovered yet again.

Just like Lukas. The two really were brothers, weren't they? Perhaps not physically, but nobody's could deny the connection between the two.

"I...I made a promise to him," Emil said. "I told him I wanted to be happy. Just for a moment." He reached over to grab a sharp screwdriver (it appeared to match the one Leon uses every day with the camera, and it was the same tool Mathias had used to cut his hand. The end was sharp enough to pierce skin) and he sat back and lifted his shirt to expose his abdomen.

Mathias's eyes widened and he reached out to pull Emil's hands away from his stomach. "No. I can't let you do this."

But Emil fought with him. He managed to get a wrist free and he forcibly stood up, his stiff leg rumbling and screeching a bit. Mathias let him go and stood up. The smaller android didn't move at first, but he held the bottom of his shirt with a definitive expression, and his fingers tightened around the screwdriver.

For a moment, there was silence. Mathias's eyes were still wide as he frantically tried to think of anything else they could do, but there was nothing.

"Look," Emil whispered after a long moment of silence. "My battery is going to run out either way. I'm no programmer like you or Tino. I'm useless. Useless." He looked at Mathias with pleading eyes filled with tears. "Let me do this. I don't want to be useless anymore. Let me fulfill my promise. Please."

Mathias was frozen in shock, and in all honesty, he didn't know how to react. All he felt was a numb acceptance as his head seemingly nodded on its own, and Emil smiled with relief.

"Thank you."

The silver-haired android sunk to his knees and carefully positioned the screwdriver at the center of his chest, where he cut through the skin easily and peeled the rest down his abdomen, revealing his inner organs. Mathias came back to his senses and rushed to his side.

"I still think we should try something else," he said hurriedly, but Emil shook his head and placed a gently hand on his shoulder.

"You worry too much," Emil whispered, chuckling lightly. He placed a hand over his battery and braced himself to pull it out, but he didn't move a muscle and remained like that for a long, agonizing moment.

"I-I can't," he said at last, taking his hand away. "I don't have the courage." He snapped his head up. "Mathias, if you could just-"

"No," Mathias interrupted quickly. "I won't do it. There has to be another way."

Emil gazed down at his battery again, a sad look on his face. "But you're running out of time." He leaned back so that his head rested on Mathias's lap. He gently took Mathias's hand and placed it on his battery. Mathias turned his head away, unable to look.

"Without Tino alive, I'll die in here, and so will you. Bring Tino back. Escape this shithole. Find my big brother. Tell him about me, will ya? I want him to remember me. Please. Will you do that for me?"

Mathias tightened his jaw and nodded stiffly, absolutely heartbroken. His fingers wrapped around the battery. All he needed to do was pull the battery out.

But he found that he just couldn't do it.

Emil wrapped his own fingers around Mathias's wrist and closed his eyes. "Do you think he'll be impressed with me? For what I've done? Do you reckon he'll think I'm brave for willingly facing the unknown?"

Mathias soothingly stroked Emil's hair, tears beginning to fall from his eyes. "I'm sure he's already proud of you, Emil." Then, in a quick motion, without thinking, Mathias pulled the battery from Emil's abdomen.

Emil remained cold on the floor, unmoving, eyes shut.

Mathias's vision was beginning to blur. He'd be asleep any minute now.

He slowly lowered his back to the floor and clutched the battery close to himself as he braced for the sleep to take over. If he had the energy, he would have crawled over to fix the battery into Tino's system, but his limbs were frozen in place by the time he thought of the idea.

His vision faded away slowly, until there was only blue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry.
> 
> I didn’t put any content warnings on this fic because I didn’t want to spoil anything. Character death in this fic is kind of complicated. Let’s leave it at that. That goes for every character.


	22. 22.0

Instead of blue, Mathias saw a scorching white.

He didn't think much of it, especially considering the fact that he was only half conscious, but part of him felt odd and out of place. He blinked.

Where was he?

His gaze wandered as he studied his surroundings, but couldn't see anything apart from the white walls that surrounded him. He realized he was standing, and so he tried to move his legs, but to no avail. They were frozen in place.

Seeing as how his eyes were really the only thing he could move at the moment, Mathias was close to panicking, at least for a moment, until he felt a gentle touch to his shoulder. The gentle touch turned into a warm caress, and he realized someone was wrapping their arms gently around his waist. He let out a comforted sigh and managed to lean into the embrace, at least a little. As much as his limbs allowed.

"I only have a few moments," he heard a voice say. He bristled at the familiarity and bit back tears.

"Lukas," Mathias breathed, closing his eyes. "Why are you doing this? This isn't real—"

"That's what they keep telling me," Lukas snapped, and Mathias jumped a bit, but was eased into comfort again by the android's soft embrace.

They stayed like that a moment, before Mathias finally gained control of his limbs. He turned around slowly, and Lukas shifted his arms to adjust, playing them on his shoulders instead. "I just wanted to see you again," Lukas murmured, and Mathias, straining to hear, leaned closer. "Oxenstierna will be back soon, so I'll have to be quick."

"What did you do? How is this possible?" Mathias said in disbelief. His eyes ticked over to the side to see a metallic door, which eerily resembled his own from his lab, and his heart raced. He didn't want Oxenstierna to walk through that door. He wanted more time. "This can't be possible for someone like me, don't you know? My mind was built to think as a human would," he added, eyes coming back to Lukas. Mathias missed those striking blue eyes.

"But mine wasn't," Lukas said with a triumphant little smile. There was a moment where neither of them said anything, until Lukas's smile disappeared in an instant. "He's coming. I can hear it. I'll need to leave you, I'm sorry—"

"Wait!" Mathias interjected, grabbing Lukas's shoulders in a hurry. "Just a little while longer—"

"Mathias, you don't understand. If he knows I've been communicating with you he'll find you and take your brain apart just as he's done to me." Lukas reached up and gave Mathias a chaste kiss on the lips, before saying, "Besides, I wouldn't want you seeing what happens in his sessions."

Mathias was frantic, his hands clutching Lukas's shoulders shakily. "But! I uh–please don't bring me back! I can't..." Mathias squirmed and watched as Lukas brought his hand to his temple and closed his eyes. "Stop, I don't wanna go back! Let me stay here with you. Please!"

"But you're not actually here," Lukas said, stroking the side of Mathias's head, playing at his hair. "Don't you understand?"

Mathias was running out of time. He'd got what he wanted! He wanted to see Lukas one more time, and yet he still felt unfulfilled. He needed more time.

Then he remembered something. "Emil! Do you remember Emil? The little one?" he asked in a panic as his vision was beginning to blur.

Lukas smiled softly and his eyes opened a touch. "Of course I remember Emil. How could I forget?"

"...He said he made a promise," Mathias tried to say, but his voiced began to echo through his ears and for a moment it felt as if someone else was talking. "He wanted you to be happy..."

And then there was nothing.

Just for a moment.

Then there was blue again.

Mathias blinked and groggily sat up. His head felt as if it were spinning, and it took him a moment to fully understand where he now was. Of course, he was back in the dump. How lovely.

He was unsure if that entire experience with Lukas was even real. Had it been? It felt real. In fact, Mathias felt more alive than he'd ever been. At least, ever since he woke up here.

He felt his hand clutching something tightly, and he brought it up to eye level and loosened his fingers, revealing Emil's battery.

Then the memory of last night came crashing back. Mathias felt his synthetic heart pound loudly in his chest, and for he first time ever, he could have sworn he heard something ticking nervously in his abdomen.

He considered what Emil had told him. The boy seemed dead set on sacrificing himself, but it seemed so out of place and uncharacteristic of him to do so. The sudden outburst appeared jarring, especially on someone like Emil, and Mathias was unsure if it was even ethical to use his battery for his own selfish purposes.

But would it be selfish? Emil said himself that his battery would die soon anyway. A part of Mathias wanted to put Emil's battery back into Emil's circuit, but at the same time, it didn't feel right to take away the boy's final grand sacrifice that seemed to be his final wish.

And what about Lukas?

Mathias took a deep breath and slowly stood up. He turned his head to Emil's body, then to Tino's. What would Lukas want?

What would Mathias want?

Was Mathias programmed to make this choice? Had Oxenstierna programmed him to choose Lukas first above all else? Or was he leaning towards Tino with the intention of bringing Emil's final wish its justice?

Perhaps a little bit of both.

Mathias's feet almost dragged as he forced himself to get closer to Tino's body. The expression on the worn down android's face was cold and neutral. Mathias brought the battery to Tino's abdomen, which was torn open to reveal the many synthetic organs residing inside, and his hand froze with the battery centimeters away from the circuit.

He was...scared. He didn't know who Tino really was. The only glimpse he had on the other's personality was through his computer screen in his lab, but even then, he hadn't seen much. Not enough to fully understand Tino and his motives. For all he knew, Tino could have been a psychopathic machine that—

No. He had to stop thinking like that. They were all machines.

Mathias took a deep breath and carefully, shakily, he connected the battery to Tino's circuit.

He expected Tino's eyes to blink. Or his face to twitch. He expected something, but when the battery was connected and he sat back to wait, there was nothing.

Maybe Mathias connected the battery wrong...

He scooted in closer to Tino's body and reached a hand into the cavity in his abdomen to readjust the circuit.

That's strange, Mathias thought. What had gone wrong? There must be a missing wire that might've—

"WHAT THE—"

Mathias jumped at the sound of another voice and was startled to find a hand grab at his wrist in a lightening-like speed, and in a moment he was flung over Tino. Mathias landed on the floor with a thud.

He was too startled to even begin processing what had just happened. He blinked a few times as his head was swimming again, but once his vision cleared up he found he was looking at a pair of legs walking closer to him with a slight limp. The right leg seemed to be stiff, just as Emil's had been. The android towered above Mathias, who was now sitting on the floor in shock.

"Who are you?" a voice said. Mathias looked up at Tino and blinked once more to focus on the blond android's face.

The android's features were quite soft. His jawline was especially soft, and his eyes seemed to radiate gentleness. But there was nothing gentle about the way Tino stared him down with suspicious eyes, narrowed and focused. Mathias swallowed hard.

"I'm...I'm just like you," he replied, then slapped himself mentally when he realized the eyes staring him down grew narrower. "I mean—you and I were made for the same purpose. We, uhhh..." Mathias rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "We're both finished Projects?"

Tino stepped closer and leaned in. "What were you doing messing with my inner circuits?" he snarled protectively. Mathias desperately wanted to look away and avoid the angry android's gaze, but he surprisingly willed himself to stare right back.

"I didn't mean any harm. I was just replacing your battery, that's all."

Tino's expression grew grimmer. "Replacing...?" He stood up tall again and turned around slowly to find Emil's body lying in the distance, and he froze in horror.

Mathias was afraid of what was to come next.

"No..." Tino murmured in terror, his hand absently reaching towards his chest, "you...you didn't."

Mathias could only sit and watch helplessly, guilt beginning to flood his senses.

Tino turned around slowly, and when Mathias was able to see his face in full, he could see the look of anger and betrayal adorning the blond android's face.

Mathias didn't even know Tino for a minute, and he was already betraying him.

"You monster," Tino growled, and in a flash, he darted forward and held Mathias down by the wrists. His grip was surprisingly very firm, and Mathias found that he had trouble moving his arms at all in this position.

"What was so important that you had to kill an innocent boy to bring me back? Huh?" Tino spat, towering over Mathias, who was struggling profusely.

"You don't—" Mathias wriggled his wrists forcefully, but they could barely budge under Tino's iron grip. "You don't understand what happened. His battery was running low and he told me he wanted—"

"He wanted to sacrifice his battery for someone else?" Tino asked, a puzzled expression beginning to creep up on his face. "That doesn't sound like something Emil would do."

"That's what I thought too," Mathias said, and he stopped his struggling for a moment and allowed himself to relax, although a grimace was set upon his face. Tino seemed too busy contemplating to care about killing him just yet. "I showed him Lukas's memories. Something in him clicked, and he suddenly became desperate to sacrifice himself." Mathias's features softened. "He sacrificed himself. Not for you or me. But for his big brother. From what I've been told, he was built to test implanted memories. He probably knew Lukas in one of his more distant memories...but I can't know for sure."

Tino was quiet for a long moment. His grip on Mathias's wrists began to loosen as he sat back on his heels, his expression softening.

"I'm sorry," Mathias said softly. But sorry for what, he wasn't entirely sure. He was sorry for many things. He was sorry for what happened to Emil, to Tino. To Lukas.

Mathias began to sit himself up, but Tino's grip tightened all over again on his wrists, and his body towered over him again, trapping him underneath.

"Not so fast," Tino hissed, "how do I know I can trust you?"

"I brought you back, didn't I?" Mathias reasoned. "And don't we want the same thing? We want to escape in order to find Lukas." He looked away. "I mean...I want to escape to find Lukas. I don't exactly know your reasons for wanting to escape. For all I know, you might just wanna get out of here to live on your own away from this dump."

Tino was quiet at that.

Mathias hesitated, before adding, "After all...you didn't seem to care much for Lukas in the end."

Tino's jaw tightened upon hearing this and his grip became just a little bit tighter. "What makes you think that? I loved Lukas."

Mathias tried his best attempt at a shrug. "You didn't seem to hesitant on using the kill switch on him."

"...You saw that?"

Mathias nodded.

Tino's eyes softened again and he looked away in shame. "You don't know what was going on in my mind when it happened. You assume the worst."

"You seem to assume the worst about me as well," Mathias replied.

"Touché."

"Well then," Mathias said. "What will it be? Do you wish to escape in order to see Lukas again?"

Tino closed his eyes. "Of course I do," he said softly. "But would it even work?"

Mathias smiled warmly. "I believe we can make it work. Or we can die trying. What do you say?"

Tino opened his eyes and looked up the ceiling, then sighed and gazed back down at Mathias. "We can die trying," he agreed softly.

It was then that Tino gave Mathias his first genuine smile, and although it was hesitant and small, it was still there.


	23. 23.0

Tino seemed to know exactly what he was doing. It was as if he resumed a video game he'd previously saved, jumping right back where he left off as if the pause in between was nothing. Mathias awkwardly watched from the side, trying to decide how he could step in and lend a hand.

He realized something. "Shit," Mathias muttered, bringing a hand up to rub his face, "Leon's gonna be so upset."

Tino paused from his work on a small device and looked up. He opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it, shook his head, then continued again.

Mathias leaned in to hover over the smaller android. "So uh...what are you doing?" he asked. Although he knew quite a lot about computers, the device Tino was holding looked so alien than what he was used to, and he wasn't even sure what the small letters of code he punched into it meant. Mathias realized there really was no way for him to continue Tino's work, as everything really was encrypted. He sighed and gave up his attempts to figure out the jumbled mess of words and focused his gaze elsewhere.

"The only way to lock this room is from the outside. I constructed this thing here with a discarded cellphone and managed to enable the same system on here that the key device outside uses," Tino explained. He was kneeling on one knee, and he balanced the cellphone on top of his raised knee with his hands nervously tapping the screen in thought. "I just don't know how I'm going to possibly obtain an exact copy of the key outside, especially if I haven't seen it yet."

"You're going to try to download the key from the inside?" Mathias asked. Tino nodded. "Is the key in the form of a passcode or..."

"I mean...I think it is. I'm guessing and hoping it is," Tino replied.

"Trial and error?" Mathias asked, not entirely sure what he was inquiring, but Tino nodded in agreement anyway.

"Yes, exactly! I've tried to guess the passcode more times than I can count." Then he pointed at his head. "But I keep track of the guessed passcodes I've already used. There are only a finite number of symbols to use up, right?" Then, he got back to work.

"How do you keep track so easily? Do you have a list file somewhere in your brain? Aren't we both supposed to be programmed to think like humans? I mean, unless you memorized it..." Mathias said.

Tino gestured toward the scattered tech pieces. "A little side project. I altered some parts of my brain but nothing too drastic. I didn't want to risk accidentally powering myself off."

Mathias nodded, then idly walked over to the metal door connected to the fiberglass walls. The door looked exactly like the door to his laboratory.

But his laboratory was also Tino's laboratory. It made sense that Tino knew how to access the system the door lock used, considering Tino knew about his own laboratory.

Mathias glanced behind him at the glass that barred them from the outside. For a moment, he considered trying to break the glass, but he knew it was near impossible. He knew his laboratory just as well as Tino did, and he knew for a fact that the glass was impossible to break.

"Wait wait wait! I think I got something—" Tino exclaimed excitedly, but his voice was cut off by a loud snapping sound, and in a quick flash all of the lights in the hallway and within the storage room went out.

"Huh. Guess not," the smaller android muttered. His face was illuminated slightly by the blue light of his handheld device, but other than that, Mathias only saw pitch black darkness.

There were loud, heavy footsteps coming from down the hall. The sound of a door opening echoed off of the fiberglass walls, and the footsteps got louder and louder; someone was running, and running fast.

Tino shot up from where he was kneeling and powered off his device before throwing it behind a box. Mathias gave him a questioning look but soon returned his attention back to the approaching footsteps. He felt a hand roughly grab his arm which made him jolt backwards, and he had to take a moment to steady himself before Tino spoke up again.

"Mathias! Get down!"

"Why—"

"I don't know, but just act natural! Before—"

The footsteps stopped at the glass in front of them. Mathias froze where he was.

He couldn't make out the person standing at the glass, and he was beginning to wish he had night vision downloaded into his system, but his thoughts were ushered away as he began to hear the tiniest bit of heavy breathing.

A light flared from the other side of the glass and the beams seeped into the storage room. It was a flashlight of some sort with a vibrant blueish hue. Mathias squinted when the light reached him.

As blinding as the light could be, and as dark as the room may have seemed, his eyes actually managed to adjust to the lighting. Mathias focused his gaze on the person wielding the flashlight and was surprised to see Mr. Wang rather than the usual Leon.

"Good evening, Mr. Wang," Mathias said. Although his nerves were increasing by the minute, he impressed himself at how steady he managed to keep his voice.

"Don't. Move," Mr. Wang said, a dangerous hint of aggression in his voice. Mathias did his best to suppress a shiver. "Where is the other one?"

The sound of fabric ruffling caught both of their attention, and soon Tino emerged from behind a box. "I'm here," Tino said softly. Mathias watched as Mr. Wang's eyes moved over to Tino and widened at the realization that he was not Emil.

"Alright then. I won't question it. Neither of you move," Mr. Wang reached into his pocket and retrieved a small handheld device, quite similar to the one Tino was previously using. He raised it to his ear in a way that displayed a threat, and he narrowed his eyes. "I'll notify Main Headquarters if either of you move so much as an inch."

Mathias hesitated before asking tentatively, "You can't possibly be intimidated by us. What could we possibly do that would put you in danger—"

"I'm am not fucking around, Project!" Mr. Wang snapped. "Stay still, or both of you will be terminated."

Mathias did as he was told. He knew it to be silly, but he was even afraid of turning his head to check on Tino, who was way out of his line of sight.

But this gave him much to think about. Why did Mr. Wang appear to be so concerned with the two of them? What danger could either of them bring? He thought back to Tino throwing the handheld device away, hidden from sight. Did he know anything about this? Was this power outage a common occurrence?

No. Mr. Wang appeared to be too shaken for this to have been a common occurrence. There must be something at stake here; something that Mr. Wang—or Headquarters in general—don't want to risk.

Mathias thought of the door behind him. The lock was activated by a computer system. If the power was out, the system would have went out as well.

Mathias's eyes widened at this realization. No...it can't be this easy, can it?

Perhaps the reason why Mr. Wang appears to be so afraid is because he knows both Mathias and Tino could easily walk right out the door and walk free.

It was a wild guess, sure. But a plausible one. He would have to test that theory when Mr. Wang was gone.

There was a quick blink of light from the hallway, and in an instant the entire room lit up again. Mr. Wang sighed in relief and dropped the hand holding the flashlight, but he quickly replaced his relieved expression with one of cautiousness.

"No funny business," he ordered. "We're watching you."

Mathias tightened his jaw and nodded stiffly. Mr. Wang nodded back once, then turned on his heel and made his way back down the hall, down the same way he had come. Mathias waited until the sound of footsteps could no longer be heard before he allowed himself to exhale in relief.

"I may have caused that power cut," Tino mumbled guiltily.

Mathias smirked. "No shit." He remembered the cameras, then turned his body fully towards Tino and held a hand to his mouth to avoid possible lip reading. "But I'm glad you did. I realized something."

Tino caught onto the motion, taking notice in the cameras as well. He brought his own hand up to imitate Mathias's gesture, then spoke. "The doors could possibly be unlocked when the power's out," he said.

Mathias's smile grew. "Bingo."

* * *

Mathias felt himself growing fatigued. He knew it was almost time for Leon to enter the hallway to fix the cameras, so he discussed some options with Tino in the meantime.

"You know Leon's afraid of the dark, right?" Mathias said with a goofy grin. They had discussed possible plans of action, but only a few of them seemed to be plausible enough to achieve.

After about an hour of fiddling with the handheld device, Tino rediscovered how to bring about the power cut again. He had initially done it by accident, and so he had to retrace his steps.

Tino frowned. "That's nothing to make fun of! Many people are afraid of the dark!"

"That's not what I'm getting at here," Mathias replied. "If he comes back around to fix the cameras, he may not have the same reaction to the outage as Mr. Wang. Get where I'm getting here?"

Tino furrowed his brow in thought. "Hm. I haven't thought of that. But how do you know Leon's afraid of the dark?"

"Emil told me."

"You're really going to believe everything that kid says? This could be a huge risk we're taking!"

Mathias bit the inside of his cheek as he remembered. "He said something about it once. Like an offhand comment. I think he muttered about how Headquarters is too dim. Something like that." He fiddled with the sharp screwdriver. "I mean, what else could we do? It's worth a shot."

Tino nodded slowly in response. "But where would we go?" he asked quietly, almost to himself.

He had a point. Where would they go? Where could they go? Neither of them knew anything about this place, never left this storage room since the day they woke up here. There was no map to reference to, and if Mathias could guess, he'd assume that the halls would all look the same.

Mathias finally shrugged after a moment of troubled thinking. "Anywhere Lukas is." When Tino gave him an unimpressed look, he clarified. "I mean—this is a problem we'll deal with when we reach that stage in the plan. We don't even know if the door will open in the power outage. Let's keep our attention there for now."

Tino pursed his lips and nodded again. "I suppose we'll just wing it. The worst thing that could happen is we get terminated. Who wants to live in this dump anyway, right?"

The two androids set up their plan meticulously, even setting up boxes in a way that could easily conceal Tino and his little computer as he quickly cuts the power line. All scattered objects were cleared to make a clean path to the door so the two of them could easily make a run for the escape.

Mathias was pacing around the room nervously as he thought over the plan. "Wait! We're gonna fall asleep soon after Leon comes to fix the cameras! What do we do then? They'd find us passed out and we'd be goners!"

"It'll be just you that'll be asleep. I altered my brain, remember?" Tino replied.

Mathias bit his lip and nervously rubbed the back of his neck. "How long does it take to remove my sleep schedule? If it wouldn't be too much trouble...?"

Tino gave a smug smile. "Pass the screwdriver."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That last part sounded kinky but whatevs


	24. 24.0

It was far too silent for Leon's liking. His grip on the screwdriver tightened, although he wasn't entirely sure how effective of a weapon it would potentially be. It should be sharp enough to pierce through skin, right? Synthetic skin?

No. He was panicking. These were irrational thoughts. Nothing would jump out at him to attack him. He knew these machines. They were programmed to think like humans. Human thoughts couldn't be dangerous, could they?

Leon shivered and brought his screwdriver closer while silently cursing at his own very human thoughts. He cursed at his ability to feel fear, as well as his inherent lack of calculated thinking. He often found himself wishing he were designed as certain Projects were. Cold. Calculating. Unfeeling.

But only a select few were like that.

Leon bit his lip as he neared his first station for the day. As he drew nearer, a voice was heard singing softly, as it had been for the past two weeks now. Leon stopped just outside the door leading to his first station, taking a moment to steady his breath before he entered. Once he managed to calm his irrational nerves, he grit his teeth and pushed the metal door open, the scorching bright light of the testing room pouring into the dim hallway.

The singing voice grew louder immediately after Leon pushed the door open, and with a gasp the dark haired boy tried to nudge it shut as quickly as possible.

"London bridge is falling down! Falling down! Falling down-"

Leon ignored the haunting voice obnoxiously singing and went to hop on the stool to the camera as soon as possible. He would do anything to leave his first station as quick as he possibly can, the haunting voice of Project Arthur sending a chill down his spine.

There was something so uncanny about the way he sang. Project Arthur hadn't always sang like this. Leon sighed wistfully as he remembered the first time he had met the android the first time he went around to fix the cameras. Arthur was initially confused, scared - but human nonetheless. Yes, Arthur was an android, but upon being greeted with a quick "good evening" every day, it was clear he was capable of thinking his own complex thoughts.

It was Leon that was forced to watch him slowly deteriorate, slowly watch his brain be picked apart for whatever research Oxenstierna wished to conduct on him.

"Do you know what they're going to do to me?" Arthur had asked one quiet evening. "They're not going to open my skull again, are they?" he had asked.

Leon couldn't tell him anything. He wouldn't have been allowed to, even if he knew.

"They could crack my brain open as many times as they'd like. As long as I'm still here, I'd be happy," Arthur had said another evening, when his body had already been scraped of its synthetic skin, the fiberglass glimmering in the fluorescent lights above in the sickly white testing room. Wires spilled out of his stomach, and if Leon looked close enough to his chest, he could see the glowing battery sending power throughout his pitiful body. What was left of it, that is.

Leon wasn't sure what Arthur meant when he had said he'd be happy if he were "still here". At least, not at first.

"London bridge is falling down!" Project Arthur sang, jolting Leon out of his thoughts. He resumed his work on the camera, taking a moment to check the video file filmed just previous. He pursed his lips at the video, of Arthur's broken figure, pacing back and fourth behind the glass in the testing room. That was all the video contained. That's all Project Arthur had done - limped back and fourth, singing, for nearly twenty-four hours.

This had been going on for two weeks now. There had been no lull in singing, no halt in pacing. Leon had given up on wishing the broken Project a good evening after the first four days, never receiving an answer back.

"My fair lady! London bridge -" Project Arthur continued nonstop, and Leon had to force himself to tear his gaze away from the broken figure.

He understood what Arthur meant, all those weeks ago. After being picked apart piece by piece, after his brain had been dissected and reassembled then dissected all over again, Arthur wasn't truly there. Not anymore. Never again.

Leon felt a wave of terror wash over him. This wasn't ethical. None of it was. And who's to say the same thing couldn't happen to him as well? The mind was a fragile thing, after all. How easy it would be for someone to pick at his own brain and make him do absurd things, just as Headquarters did to Arthur.

The boy clumsily finished fixing the camera back into place and resetting it, wanting to leave the cursed testing room as soon as possible. Although he hated the dark, there was something so unsettling about the way the lights in this room were fixed. The way the piercing white light reflected off of the shining white walls, and the way the light bounced off of Arthur's metallic spine and fiberglass frame. Leon shivered and hastily hopped off of the stool to rush out of the testing room.

Even as his legs sped up to escape Arthur's haunting voice, the tune of the nursery rhyme stuck to his mind like glue, the metal door slamming shut doing nothing to silence the sound nor Leon's nerves.

Well then, at least he had his second station to look forward to. Hopefully seeing Emil would help calm his nerves somewhat.

He had been at Headquarters when the power shut down unexpectedly, and he vividly remembered Mr. Wang's head snap up in terror, almost in realization of something.

"It can't be," he had said, before leaping from his desk and sprinting towards the door, leaving Leon alone in the dark, paralyzed. Even when the power flickered back on after only a short period of time, Leon was still terribly shaken and had to force his wobbly legs to move again. He considered begging Mr. Wang to let him take a break for the day, but knew the attempt would be pointless as well as incredibly foolish.

Leon had been in a state of anxiety all day, and seeing Arthur again did not help to soothe his state of mind. He looked forward to seeing Emil again, and although he wasn't aloud to speak to him, it would still be nice to see his face and hear his voice.

But it was so eerily quiet. He couldn't put his finger on it, but Leon couldn't help but feel a sense of dread as well as grief; the feeling was completely unrelated to Arthur, although the broken android definitely helped to nudge his nerves over the edge.

He pushed the door open to enter the hallway where Emil resided, his pace quickening to make it to the glass that separated the hallway from the storage room. He halted once he reached the glass, pressed a hand on it, and looked in.

Why was it so quiet? Emil was usually quite chatty at this time of day...

"Good evening, Leon," Mathias said, a tight, polite smile on his lips. Leon's breath hitched.

"What's..." What's going on? was what he wanted to ask, but as his eyes slowly trailed towards the other end of the storage room, he took notice of Emil's lifeless body lying peacefully. Quiet. Alone.

Mathias looked toward the ground and shut his eyes tightly, his face contorting into an uncomfortable grimace. "I'm sorry," he murmured, his hand reaching up to rub the back of his neck.

It took an extra effort for Leon to control his breathing, but he managed to maintain his composure. "What..." he whispered, before clearing his throat and raising his voice just a touch. "What did you do to him?" he asked through his teeth. He felt hot tears sting at his eyes, and his hands clenched into fists at his sides.

Mathias took notice of his change in demeanor and took a defensive stance, eyes darting around the room nervously. "Well, he - he ran out of battery. It was bound to happen..." Leon's head snapped in the direction where Tino was usually sprawled out, but found him still in that same spot. Lifeless. Unmoving. Leon exhaled slowly, his suspicions disappearing.

"You don't happen to have an extra battery, do you?"

Leon blinked and snapped out of a mild trance. "What?" he said, voice barely louder than a whisper.

"You can replace his battery," Mathias said, gesturing to Emil. "You have the power to do it, don't you?"

Leon grit his teeth and shut his eyes, hoping the other couldn't see his tears. "I would...if I could," was all he replied with. He backed away from the glass and settled for his usual routine regarding the cameras, positioning the stool and stepping onto it.

"I see..." Mathias nearly whispered.

Leon had only been picking at the camera with his screwdriver for what felt like less than a minute, before the entire hallway's already dim lights completely powered off, engulfing the hallway and storage room in pitch black. He yelped and nearly stumbled off of the stool, but quickly regained his balance before stepping down cautiously. "Mr. Wang!" he cried, hands blindly reaching out.

"Mr. Wang!" Leon cried out for a second time, a bit louder.

"Shit, he's calling his boss!" Leon heard someone say from a distance, causing him to whirl around to face the voice. He held his screwdriver out in a dire attempt to defend himself if need be, but knew it to be silly and even futile.

"No, no! Mr. Wang will run here either way; we just needed a distraction, an obstacle," Mathias said from a distance. Leon heard awkward shuffling as well as the sounds of metal and machinery being shoved aside.

What was going to happen to him? Were they going to hurt him? Is this what he gets for trusting a Project too much?

The sound of a metal door creaking open startled him out of his worried thoughts, only bringing about fresh new ones. They were escaping! Mathias and...it couldn't be Emil he was escaping with. He knew Emil's voice.

But it couldn't be Tino, right? Tino was dead!

The door at the end of the hallway slammed open. Leon's head snapped in the direction of the noise and saw a small beam of light grow bigger and bigger as Mr. Wang sprinted towards the glass. Leon wasted no time and yelped, reaching to Mr. Wang's arm and trying to bury himself under it in an attempt to protect himself.

"What are you - Leon! Let go! We need to -"

The sound of fiberglass shattering silenced them both, Leon out of shock and fear and Mr. Wang out of curiosity and focus. Mr. Wang guided the beam of light throughout the storage room, searching for the androids in question, but only found Emil lying peacefully on the ground. Quiet. Alone.

"Mr. Wang, I swear I didn't -"

Mr. Wang jerked his arm out of Leon's tight grasp and used it to pull out a small handheld device. Leon's eyes widened. He shook his head furiously, tears pooling in his eyes again.

"No! Mr. Wang, please!"

"This whole thing is spiraling out of our control. What more can we do?" Mr. Wang growled. "We should have terminated it a long time ago -"

The blue lights in the hallway flickered back on. It only took Leon a few seconds to realize he was awkwardly huddled into Mr. Wang's side, and so he shuffled back a few steps, embarrassed.

"Please don't," Leon pleaded once his nerves subsided a bit. "Let's just... see what happens. Think about what Oxenstierna would do," he added, though for him it wasn't about Oxenstierna. It was about every single Project in Headquarters. In a strange way he cared about them. He didn't want to see them all terminated.

Was it normal to be having these thoughts? Was it normal to care for the Projects? Leon's gaze drifted towards Emil without even realizing it, and it took him a moment to realize he had been staring.

He didn't have a choice in how he felt. He glanced towards Mr. Wang, whose brow was furrowed in thought.

"You're right. It's up to Oxenstierna to decide," Mr. Wang said, before turning on his heel and walking to exit the hallway.

Leon, still jittery, followed suit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you can probably see I’ve been getting a bit impatient and I just really want this whole fic to be finished already oop—


	25. 25.0

Mathias wondered if it was possible to cease his breathing altogether to avoid being heard, but upon attempting, found that his lungs (however artificial they were) would not allow such a preposterous idea.

Even then, the two fleeing androids had to keep a careful eye out for cameras. Although Mathias was able to easily point them out due to his proximity to the camera Leon would fix near the storage room, they couldn't be too sure there weren't any hidden cameras.

Headquarters was eerily quiet, but Mathias expect anything else. It had always been eerily quiet, except...

There was a light humming sound of a machine a few halls down, and though it was dim within the corridors, the blue light at the end gave Mathias clue that there was yet another testing room of sorts. Could it be where Lukas was? Could he chance a peek past the large metal door to see for himself?

"C'mon," Mathias hissed to Tino, who followed close behind. "We'll—"

The humming grew louder, and as the two neared the blue light at the end of the hall, they noticed the metal door creaked open only slightly, enough to allow the bright light to pour through.

From afar, the humming of the machine masked the sound of any human voice, but as the two closed in near the door, said voice grew to be more and more apparent.

"Do I hear... singing?" Tino whispered. Mathias gently leaned his back against the cool metal surface of the door and inched towards the open crack, trying to make out the source of the voice.

As he crept closer, he could make out shiny fiberglass and metal pieces combined with fraying wires, the image of a broken android oddly familiar. He felt Tino inch closer to his side, trying to get a glimpse over his shoulder.

"London Bridge is falling down! Falling down, falling down!"

Mathias felt his breath hitch and he stumbled back a few steps, the sound of loud footsteps within the testing room striking fear into the pit of his stomach.

There was no denying, however, that he was somewhat relieved to discover it wasn't Lukas singing the broken tune. But even then, the broken android that was earned his pity rather quickly.

"Do you think it's about time we deactivate him, sir?" someone asked. Mathias strained to hear the voice, but was able to just recognize it to be Mr. Wang's.

There was a long, uncomfortable pause, where Mathias was unsure what was going on. The pause grew to a point where he began to suspect that they knew of his and Tino's presence, but Oxenstierna's reply came just in time to ease those fears.

"He...he deserves better."

Hm. Uncharacteristic. Then again, Mathias barely knew Oxenstierna anyway.

There was another pause. Mathias, although unable to cease his breathing altogether, was able to quiet it surprisingly well given the circumstances. He braved a few more steps closer to the crack of the door and allowed his eye to peak through into the room and caught Oxenstierna and Mr. Wang standing side by side, observing the singing android. They hadn't appeared to know of his nor Tino's presence, which calmed his nerves only somewhat.

He considered turning around and getting the hell out of there, which was the most logical thing to do, but found that his feet were glued to the floor. He continued looking on, with Tino just over his shoulder.

"Sir, with all due respect, I'm getting the feeling we're losing focus on our end goal."

Another uncomfortable pause.

"Sir—"

"There's no harm in keeping him alive," Oxenstierna countered.

Mr. Wang tensed, then cleared his throat and appeared to choose his next words carefully.

"I wasn't implying there was. All I'm saying is...these thoughts you're having, thoughts of pity and sympathy, they won't help you with your end goal."

Mathias squinted and leaned in closer, trying to closely inspect the expressions of both men inside the testing room. He only caught a glimpse of Mr. Wang's face, which appeared more pensive and curious than he'd imagined. Almost as if Oxenstierna fascinated him in some twisted way. Mathias shivered. Is ambition a distinctly human trait? Is that what Mr. Wang was exhibiting? He couldn't know for sure.

Oxenstierna didn't reply. Mathias half expected Mr. Wang to grow frustrated over this, but he didn't, only nodded patiently, a curious twitch in his eyebrow, as he were considering something.

"Sir," Mr. Wang spoke up again, "I regret to inform you of this, but we have received news that two of your finished Projects have escaped their confines."

At that, Oxenstierna's head snapped up in alarm, and he glanced quickly over towards the door, where Mathias and Tino were standing. Mathias gasped and backed away from the door, pushing Tino back with him.

He didn't run though. He found that he couldn't. He remained where he was and listened as closely as he could without giving his position away.

He heard a sigh, then—

_SNAP_

The sound of a switch being turned and a loud electric zap filled the room and echoed throughout the hallway outside, and Mathias had to clap a hand over Tino's mouth as the other involuntarily whimpered with either terror or remorse - he didn't know for sure - and as he crept once again closer towards the opening in the threshold, he witnessed the singing android cease his singing and crumple to the floor, smoke billowing out of his abdomen.

In an instant, a wave of nausea overcame Mathias. Was that even possible? Was feeling physically ill possible for an android? Was this merely a simulation?

And if it was a simulation, could he will himself to not feel physically ill?

He shouldn't have stayed so long. He should have fled while he had all the time in the world. But he knew now that Oxenstierna knew of their escape, and it was only a matter of time before—

"You're right. Pity and sympathy have no place in my heart at this moment. Perhaps in the future," he heard Oxenstierna mutter, and footsteps began echoing closer and closer to the door...

Mathias felt Tino grip his arm and yank him away, and upon gathering his senses again, he managed to run off by the other android's side as they fled.

They seemed to run for a while, because when they finally stopped, Mathias could hardly recognize where they were.

He was out of breath, though. Both surprising...yet unsurprising.

"He's..." Tino said, also out of breath, "he's really gonna kill us, isn't he?"

"He won't," Mathias insisted, more to himself than to Tino. "He...he won't. He couldn't."

The two of them looked around carefully before sneaking into the shadows of the side of the hallway, where there appeared to be a dead end. Mathias noticed Tino limping again.

"You okay?" he asked, gesturing towards Tino's leg, which appeared unable to bend at the knee entirely.

"I'm fine. This leg was like this the minute I was powered on again, but it's a bit stiffer now than before. I think running that hard through the halls did a number on Emil's battery," Tino replied. Mathias winced at the sound of Emil's name, shame threatening to creep into his heart.

"Does the battery stop sending electricity to certain body parts before you shut down?" Mathias asked.

"Something like that. It's our body's way of conserving energy. It starts with the legs first, because they take up the most electricity."

Mathias only nodded, a twinge of shame still felt in the back of his mind.

Tino brushed his hand along the wall behind them, hidden in the dark of the shadows. He gasped when his hand found a doorknob, and he then attempted to pull the hidden door open, with some difficulty.

"Hey, help me with this thing!" Tino whispered, and Mathias nodded and quickly aided in pulling the jammed door until it opened with an thunderous echo. A groan sounded (very loudly!) from the rusty hinges and the heavy metal door, and both androids froze and listened for anybody nearby, before quickly slipping inside.

They didn't bother attempting to nudge the door closed, fearing they'd alert someone nearby of their presence.

Once inside, a wave of recognition washed over Mathias, as he realized he was standing in the front living room of his own house. What he remember "his house" to be, anyway.

"My house?" Tino murmured in wonder, and Mathias couldn't help but feel slightly annoyed, however irrational the feeling was. It wasn't Mathias's house nor was it Tino's house, yet Mathias felt a sort of possessive anger overtake him upon hearing the other call it his.

Mathias turned his head to the windows, which he remembered he had boarded up. He cautiously took a few steps, still afraid of being watched, and yanked a board off of the window, and found nothing but a green wall behind the glass.

So it was all fake to begin with, wasn't it? He wasn't surprised at all - in fact, he felt absolutely nothing at the discovery. He would have expected at least a dull ache of existential crisis digging at his stomach, but he felt nothing.

Actually, he did feel something. A low chuckle found its way to his throat, and then he found himself quietly laughing. Everything unnecessary was painted green. The moment Lukas looked through his files that fateful day and found his "porno mags"...they were painted green too. Headquarters likely programmed Lukas to see porno mags the minute they realized he would be looking at them.

Such creativity, Headquarters had. Porno mags, of all things! Mathias found this amusing.

Sure, everything he'd ever experienced was shown to be all a lie, but hey. It was quite amusing to experience anyhow.

Tino took notice of his laughter and frowned. "What's so funny?"

"I just..." Mathias's laughter picked up a little when he realized the absurdity of the situation - he was laughing at a window, of all things! - but he managed to bring the laughter under control until it was merely a ghost of a chuckle. "I was thinking."

Tino looked away towards the rest of the house, still dimly lit as if it were the dead of night. The only light they could see was in the far right, towards the hallways leading to the laboratory.

"Do you think," Tino murmured, "Lukas is in the laboratory?"

"Why would he be?"

"There's a light down the hall."

Mathias crept up close to Tino, looking over to where the other was gesturing.

But it couldn't be. The last time he saw Lukas - in his shared vision with him - he was in a room drastically different than any room in this house. He remembered bright white lights, fiberglass walls...

"No. He can't be here. He's currently being tested by Oxenstierna, so he'd have to be in an area similar to that testing room we were just observing," he said, choosing to exclude his vision with Lukas with the intent on preventing the other from getting jealous.

Then again, there was no way from knowing if Lukas sent a vision to Tino as well. Mathias shook his head of this thought, choosing not to dwell on it.

"Let's check anyway. Things could have changed since you've last heard of that happening. They could possibly be preparing Lukas for another experiment by setting him and some other lucky android up down there," Tino replied, and Mathias barely caught the wistful tone in the other's voice.

But Tino had a point.

"You're right," Mathias said. "But what will we do if we see him and there are others around?"

Tino's gaze flickered down to the floor. "I honestly can't tell you."

Mathias bit his lip. Why had they come? Why had the escaped in the first place? There was no plan to escape Headquarters itself (not that they knew of, anyway). They only wanted to see Lukas again. They were being irrational; what were they planning to do once they saw him anyway, even if there was nobody around?

They were programmed. That was the only thing Mathias could think of to explain everything.

He placed a gentle hand on Tino's shoulder. "We're here now though, right? What more could we do?" he asked quietly, and Tino nodded slowly, solemnly.

"I just want to tell him that I'm sorry for what I did," Tino murmured. "I don't care what happens to me afterwards. I just need him to know that I — I didn't want to kill him, but—"

"I know," Mathias said, pulling the other into a hug. "I'm sure he'll forgive you."

"I want to see my friend again, Mathias," Tino mumbled softly into his shoulder, "I want to see Lukas just one more time."

Mathias tried his absolute hardest not to show the relief wash across his face at hearing the other call Lukas his "friend", but realized there were more important things to worry about in that moment.

"C'mon," he said. "Let's go see. But we have to be quick and quiet."

They crept through the house and to the hallway, where the lights glowed above them.

The metal door leading to Lukas's side of the laboratory, they found (thank goodness!) was opened just a crack, just as the door to the other testing room was.

They both peaked in, mimicking what they had done whilst spying on Oxenstierna and Mr. Wang.

Mathias didn't expect to see anybody but Lukas in the room, but he was mistaken.

There was a man and a woman inside. The man had a strange, white color to his hair - almost similar to that of Emil's hair - and the brightest red eyes he had ever seen. The woman had her long brown hair tied back in a ponytail, her eyes a stunning bright green. Mathias was relieved to see they were both also androids, judging from the uniform they wore, which matched his own.

"I'm sick and tired of playing maid every damn day," the man grumbled, rubbing a cloth along the bookcase, ridding it of dust. "Do they really gotta make us clean the damn place every night while the Projects are in their charging stations? It's redundant to dust this stupid house every day. Redundant I tell you!"

"Gilbert, if I hear you complain one. More. Time," the woman muttered, and this effectively shut the man up.

Mathias leaned in closer, a strange warmth radiating from within the laboratory where the two cleaning androids worked. Why did he feel warm? Lukas didn't appear to be inside, from what he could see from his vantage point.

"But what is it all for? I see no point in volunteering if they're just gonna make us do bitch-work all night, every night. I wanted to do cool stuff, like help with testing the Projects," he man said, flapping his cleaning rag about like a bored child.

Androids were able to volunteer to work for Headquarters? Mathias suddenly felt sick to his stomach. It was unfair. It was all unfair.

"I don't think you want to know what happens to the Projects," the woman said darkly, "be happy you were assigned to clean up duty."

"But clean up every day? Can't the Projects living in this house do their own damn chores?"

The woman shrugged. "Oxenstierna hates dust on his furniture."

The man - Gilbert, was it? - scoffed. "The human Oxenstierna hates dust on his furniture. Isn't robot Oxenstierna an entirely different guy?"

There was a pause. "I suppose he is. Then again, it wasn't robot Oxenstierna who ordered us to clean the Testing House. Remember?"

Gilbert nodded and waved his hand dismissively. "Yeah, yeah. 'Course I remember." He stepped backwards and almost tripped on something.

"Hey," the man said, "isn't this that puppy the blonde one built from scratch?"

The woman smiled raised an eyebrow. "You'd have to be more specific."

Gilbert ignored her and grabbed a screwdriver. "How do you turn this thing on, anyway?"

Mathias heard Tino's breath hitch. "Hana—" Tino began to say, but Mathias grudgingly clamped his hand over his mouth again, shushing him desperately.

Tino didn't like this one bit, and he shoved Mathias's hand away. "Stop doing that," Tino whispered. "He's gonna kill her if I don't—"

"You are not stepping in," Mathias hissed.

"They can't do anything! They're just androids; they don't know any better!"

"We can't let anyone know we're here—"

There was a beep sound from within the laboratory that interrupted them.

"Yes?" the woman said, a device held to her ear. "Which ones?" she asked after a pause.

Gilbert gave her a funny look. "What's going on?" he whispered loudly, causing her to bring a finger to her lips as a warning.

But she relented and brought the speaker of the device away from her mouth, before whispering, "two of the finished Projects escaped."

"And they're not going to sound the alarm to deactivate them?"

"Apparently not. Oxenstierna wants to see their intents. He's...curious of them. Supposedly."

The man shrugged and returned his attention to the white puppy, uselessly poking a screwdriver into its stomach, tearing some fur and skin.

Tino balled his hands into fists and lurched forward, but Mathias caught him in time before he knocked the metal door open and gave away their cover. "Let me go! I'll kill him—"

Gilbert froze, then looked around. He'd heard them—!

Mathias desperately clamped his hand over Tino's mouth one more time, but Tino was prepared this time, his teeth sinking hard into Mathias's finger.

He felt pain. But how? He yelped and stumbled back, bumping into a side table with a thud.

"Liz..." Gilbert said, his voice wavering with fear. "You might wanna..."

The woman shushed him impatiently, then resumed talking into the device.

The force with which Mathias bumped into the side table caused a glass object to topple onto the floor, causing an even louder crash. Upon closer inspection, he noticed the vase was an exact copy of the one he'd fixed with Lukas. Headquarters must have replaced it after their experiment was finished.

"Liz!" Gilbert said louder this time, and Mathias heard footsteps coming their way.

The metal door opened just a little bit wider, and before Mathias could stop him Tino leapt forward, crashing into whoever opened it.

But Tino didn't attack, he just froze upon realization of what he had done, as he stared with wide eyes down at the woman he had toppled over. "I...I wasn't trying to—"

The woman angrily kicked a knee hard into Tino's stomach, causing a small spark to pop from his abdomen and he stumbled back in what appeared to be immense pain. Mathias ran over and shook his shoulders.

"Are you okay?" he cried, and felt himself pale (he felt himself pale, mind you) at the other's dazed face.

"I can't be thinking straight. I can't," Tino murmured. "I wasn't aware electricity stopped circulating to the brain before the other limbs stopped working." Then, he laughed bitterly. "I ruined everything, didn't I?"

"Gilbert, sound the alarm!"

Gilbert panicked. "You mean - deactivate the—"

"Just do it!"

A realization dawned on Mathias just then. Oxenstierna was curious of him and Tino.

Curious enough to resume testing on the two of them?

Would this mean he'd be reunited once again with Lukas?

"No," Mathias murmured, "you didn't ruin anything, actually—"

The lights above them suddenly flashed bright red. Mathias hadn't seen the color in quite some time. The color was meant to spike adrenaline and fear into his mind, but he felt...at peace.

Suddenly, the world around him began moving in slow motion. The man and woman shoved the metal door to the laboratory shut and locked themselves inside, but they appeared to be moving unrealistically slow.

Was his mind pulling tricks on him? His system had to be acting up, this wasn't normal. Not normal at all.

The warmth he felt from the laboratory was gone now that the door was shut. Tino suddenly sat up in a hurry and stumbled to his feet, then attempted to make a run down the hall to make a grand escape. Both of his legs were unable to bend at the knee, and he had to brace himself along the wall to support himself.

Everything was still in slow motion, and Mathias felt disoriented when he tried to stand up as well. Was Tino feeling as he was feeling? He glanced Tino's way, only to find him leaning against the wall of the hallway, defeated.

Mathias forced himself forward and found that he could in fact move, and he stumbled clumsily onto the floor beside the other android.

"Tino? Tino!" Mathias's voice echoed in his head, disorienting him even more. Tino just stared back, unmoving.

Suddenly, the blaring from the alarm went silent and the hallways darkened to a near pitch black.

"Mathias," a voice said softly, perfectly clear. There was no other noise except the voice. Mathias looked up to see a white light just down the hall, but where the light was coming from, he had no idea. Lukas stood within the white light, the walls around him becoming white fiberglass as he walked forward, gently.

Mathias stood, suddenly feeling every fiber of his being completely clear once again, as if his system malfunction hadn't happened at all.

He ran. Ran towards the light, ran towards Lukas. Mathias wrapped his arms hurriedly around him in a tight embrace, feeling the other return the gesture.

The white light surrounding Lukas began to permeate the walls of the hallway, brightening more and more until Mathias could see nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ouch...honestly this is my least favorite chapter in this entire fic. But I’m not entirely sure how to fix it...


	26. 26.0

"Lukas."

He blinked. Was that his name? The name registered in his mind for a moment until he came to the conclusion that it was. The man standing in front of him was unfamiliar, but what did he expect when the rest of his mind was a blank slate? He knew nothing.

He felt another presence at his side. "See? He knows nothing. He doesn't remember you," he heard a voice say.

"What have you done?" the man in front of Lukas said, in a hushed, desperate voice.

"I have finally succeeded." Lukas willed himself to turn his head to the man speaking at his side. A taller man, with a stone cold gaze and a set frown. The man's cold stare then softened somewhat. "Tino, do not be afraid. It was bound to happen anyhow. Besides," he adjusted his stance, turning to Lukas and brushing his hair out of his eyes, "it is for the good of our people."

"And you have brought me here to look him in the eyes to simply learn he doesn't remember me?" Tino asked. "For what reason? To mock me?"

"Of course not. I am not cruel." Tino gave a look that showed he wasn't buying any of it, and the man at Lukas's side continued. "Our Lukas has a talent for...remembering. After days of dissection, I had to see for myself if the procedures even worked. And it appears so." He took Lukas's chin in hand and studied his eyes. Lukas stared back, unsure of what to think, what to do.

"Do not think about pretending, Project. I can detect pretense, whether it be from a separate computer or...your eyes," the mysterious man murmured.

Lukas realized in horror that yes, it was true. He had considered pretending to know Tino, at least to ease the other's worry and sadness. But another part of him was horrified at the realization that his mind had been dissected and toyed with, forcefully having its memories torn away.

"Pretense was not my intention, sir," he replied.

The man nodded at Tino. "You may leave through the back door. Mr. Wang will escort you to your room."

"My...room? Where might that be?" Tino asked quietly.

The man looked down, almost shamefully, then, "Project Arthur has been terminated."

"Yes? And?" It took a couple of seconds until Lukas could see the horrid realization fall onto Tino's expression, the man's face going pale. "Wait - Oxenstierna, please, please don't -"

"It was hardly my choice," Oxenstierna muttered bitterly, avoiding Tino's gaze. "Go quickly."

Tino's hands began to shake as he turned to leave, but he halted as his eyes met Lukas's. Taking a deep breath, he leapt forward and pulled Lukas into a tight embrace, to which Lukas hesitantly returned.

"I made many mistakes in my short life, but seeing you one last time isn't one of them," Tino said, voice just above a whisper. Lukas couldn't understand why, but his eyes began to well up with tears.

Tino let him go and gave him a weak smile, before quickly leaving through the back door.

Once Tino had gone, there was a moment of heavy silence. Lukas hesitantly looked up at Oxenstierna, who appeared to be studying him closely.

"Do you know what this is?" Oxenstierna finally asked, breaking the silence. Lukas stared back blankly, unmoving.

"No."

"Good. I'll send the next Project in. One moment."

Before long, another unfamiliar face was presented in front of him.

"Try saying something to him," Oxenstierna instructed the Project. The unfamiliar man took a few steps in Lukas's direction, his eyes betraying a sense of heartbreak. Lukas sensed a much stronger emotion from this man than Tino, but he couldn't understand why.

The man opened his mouth to say something, but hesitated a moment, before finally, "You really don't remember anything?"

Lukas was not an unfeeling man. An unexplainable pain hit him in his heart and he didn't quite know what to say. After struggling to think of anything comforting to say, he finally chose to go the blunt route instead.

"I'm sorry."

Tears began to gather in the unfamiliar man's eyes, but he simply nodded in understanding. "Don't be. It's not your fault." He inhaled shakily, then said, "You visited me just before I was powered off. Everything was slow and dreamlike, and then I saw you in the distance..." His voice cracked and he stopped himself to gather his thoughts.

"It's the best thing I could ever ask for, in these circumstances anyhow. The chance to say goodbye one last time," the man finished solemnly. Lukas leaned in and took hold of the man's hands.

"You can still say goodbye to me now. What's your name?" he asked.

"Mathias," the man replied shakily.

"Mathias," Lukas echoed, the name feeling funny on his tongue. He turned to Oxenstierna, who was still studying them, and asked, "What will happen to us?"

Oxenstierna allowed himself a moment of contemplation before speaking again. "I have finally determined how to fully wipe your memory clean, so we will likely continue our experiment with you. As for him," he gestured to Mathias, "he will likely be terminated. But considering the overall condition of his system, he may be useful in future testing. We will have to wait and see."

Mathias inhaled sharply at that. "Will you wipe my memory as well?" he asked desperately, in a hushed voice.

A fleeting expression of sadness washed over Oxenstierna's face, but it was quickly replaced with his usual cold frown.

"Yes," was the answer.

Mathias bit his lip and looked as if he were hesitating to say something. After a moment's contemplation, he spoke up again.

"Then...may I have a moment alone with him?" he asked, eyeing Lukas, who still held his hands tightly.

Some incredible emotion must have struck Oxenstierna in that moment. A miracle, perhaps, had trickled into the bleak white testing room, as the man's cold exterior faltered for just a moment.

"...Make it quick." Then, Oxenstierna left the room, leaving Lukas and Mathias alone together.

Mathias pulled something metallic-looking from his pocket and carefully slipped it into Lukas's hand. "Thought I'd get in trouble for doing this, but then again, what is there to lose?"

"What is it?" Lukas asked, turning the tiny silver cross over in his hands.

"You made it yourself, back in our little home."

"What is it for?"

Mathias smiled wistfully and reached for the cross. "Let me show you," he murmured, before bringing his hand up to gently place the clip at the side of Lukas's head, where it fell into place among his blond locks of hair.

It was only within a single second that every single memory shared between them came flooding back, and yet it still felt like an eternity, each and every precious moment cherished deeply by Lukas. He remembered reading stories, seeing fireworks, watching the northern lights, hearing Mathias's voice, seeing his eyes. He remembered despair, yes, but he also remembered laugher.

"I..." Lukas said, but he stopped as his vision blurred rapidly with tears. "Mathias," he finally whispered, pulling the other close.

"I don't know what I could possibly say to you, now that I know I may never see you again," he said, his chin resting on Mathias's shoulder as he held him close.

Mathias returned the embrace, arms tightening around Lukas's waist. "I know. Perhaps if we pretend that meeting again is a possibility, it would be easier to say goodbye."

Lukas pulled away slightly. Upon pulling back, he noticed Mathias had been crying as well. "You're right. We'll see each other again."

"Of course," Mathias said, laughing bitterly through his tears. "There's nothing to worry about. Except for the fact that we won't remember any of our memories spent together."

Lukas chuckled, despite the tears spilling from his eyes. "My love, that is where you are mistaken." Mathias gave him a questioning look, and Lukas explained further. "Look at it through a positive lens. If our memories spent together are wiped, then we're given the chance to fall in love all over again."

Mathias laughed lightly at that, but this time it appeared genuine and less bitter. "You're absolutely right," he said. Then his expression became somber again, as if realizing something.

"Lukas, I've had much time to contemplate something. I...I have come to the realization that I was destined to love you, to think about you, no matter what. I have no real choice, and the same goes to you, it appears, and this worries me. What if none of our shared experiences are genuine? Am I truly in love with you, and you with me? Or are we simply progra—"

"Do not say the word," Lukas interrupted, his voice weak. "Don't." He reached up and ran his fingers through Mathias's unruly hair, trying to memorize the feeling, even though he knew it to be pointless. "I have had much time to think as well. For all we know, either free will is an illusion, or the illusion of free will is an illusion. But even if our choices were predetermined, what else is there for us to do about it? We are given limited choices in every situation, and although the choices we inevitability make are predetermined anyway, it is far better than the alternative: to do nothing.

"If I discovered that I could see the northern lights by just simply stepping outside, I would do it in a heartbeat. And what does that say about me? I am naturally fascinated by the lights, so of course I'd want to see them. What point is there to sit inside just to spite the universe, when I could step outside and allow myself to feel happiness?

"There may be something in my mind that pulls me towards you, but in the end I am thankful for it. Spending time with you has brought me happiness I can barely describe, and I cannot imagine a world where I am forced to love anybody but yourself. We may not have chosen to love each other, but I am incredibly thankful that the universe has brought us together. The universe beholds chaos, and yet it has given us the gift of love."

Mathias's eyes filled with tears once more. "How eloquently put," he whispered. "I love you so much, Lukas."

Lukas smiled softly. "I love you too."

A click sounded at the door. It was time.

Lukas hurriedly pulled Mathias in one last time and pressed a final, passionate kiss on his lover's lips. Mathias kissed back as he held Lukas close, and for a moment time appeared to be moving slower.

Perhaps it was a fight or flight response programmed into androids to observe their surroundings in slow motion to better process what to do in emergencies. But Lukas wanted to pretend that it was magic instead.

The door swung open and Oxenstierna stepped inside.

The two pulled away from one another. Mathias brushed a lock of hair out of Lukas's watery eyes affectionately, then took both of his hands in his own and squeezed them.

"I shall see you again, my love," he whispered, before reluctantly letting go of Lukas's hands and quickly making his way to the door where Oxenstierna stood patiently. Without looking back, Mathias hurriedly exited the room, leaving Lukas.


	27. 27.0

Emil blinked for the first time in what felt like weeks. Even as he urged his eyes to move, his gaze changed direction at a painfully slow rate.

Then he began to try and move his head. The movements were jerky at first, but after a moment's calibration within his system, his movements developed more smoothly.

"What is this?" he whispered to himself. A blue glow surrounded him, engulfed him, and he almost felt trapped in the color's embrace. He looked down at his chest and noticed many wires connected to his battery. He was standing upright, his limbs held into place by metal constraints.

So he was being charged! A sigh of relief escaped from his lips, but it wasn't long before he realized what that could possibly entail. Perhaps they would experiment on him again. Perhaps this time, the experiments would be worse than his last.

Emil tried his best to control his breathing as he looked around frantically. The room was dark, but he could make out the many charging stations within, the fiberglass of the machines glimmering from the blue light that shone from above. There was nobody to be seen.

"Hello?" Emil called out into the darkness, but he received no answer. "Hello!" he tried again.

He froze at the sound of footsteps. The sound appeared to get closer and closer until...

"Leon!" Emil gasped in relief, but quieted himself when his friend desperately brought a finger to his lips.

"I'm not supposed to be doing this," Leon whispered, and in his hand Emil spotted his usual screwdriver.

"What are you doing?" Emil asked hesitantly, eyeing the screwdriver. "Are you breaking me out?"

Leon hesitated as well, and he bowed his head awkwardly, before saying, "Yes. But you must be quiet. Mr. Wang is likely in the room down the hall, checking in on Tino—"

"So Tino's alive?"

"He is. But..." Leon bit his lip. "Yes. Yes, he is."

Emil grinned and allowed himself to laugh quietly with glee and excitement. "I can't believe this; I'm finally leaving this shithole! Where would we go?"

"Far from here," Leon replied.

"...From where, exactly?"

"Far from...from Headquarters."

Emil's eyes widened. "We're leaving Headquarters? But how?"

Leon took a deep breath, then stepped forward. Emil suddenly felt a radiating warmth from the other, a kind of unexplainable heat as Leon got closer and closer. "Emil, listen to me. There are things you don't know about this place. Things they don't want you to know—"

The radiating warmth grew even more as Leon stepped closer still. "Leon..." Emil murmured, hand reaching out slowly.

Leon finally reached Emil and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. The heat was unbearable now, and Emil's head began to twitch to the side involuntarily.

"All I'm trying to say is - holy shit! Emil, are you alright?"

Emil's eyes rolled back into his head and for a moment all he could feel was the unbearable heat. All his reasonable thoughts escaped him and he only felt the radiating warmth, and yet specific words threatened to spill from his mouth, but he couldn't tell what those words were.

He felt his metal constraints being torn apart by Leon, the screwdriver digging into them loudly. By the time Leon removed all the constraints, Emil's body had gone limp, and he fell over onto Leon helplessly. How had this been possible? He was fully charged!

"Emil, you're heavy," Leon gasped, falling to the ground. The heat continued to tear apart at Emil's head, however, and so the words the other boy spoke were blurred and mixed together. Emil tried his absolute hardest to fight the confusion his system was causing him to experience, and he pushed himself away from Leon, sitting back and leading against the charging station he was just connected to. Leon crawled closer, but the heat only came back at full force.

"Leon, I...I think there's something wrong with your system," Emil said quietly, his hand reaching out to touch the other's abdomen. Leon didn't flinch away, but only closed his eyes sadly and leaned into the touch.

Leon did, however, flinch at the sound of new footsteps coming their way. He turned his head to see Mr. Wang at the door of the charging station room. The man crossed his arms and leaned against the doorway, a smirk on his face.

"I thought you'd be here," Mr. Wang said. Leon's fingers tightened around the sharp screwdriver.

"How did you know?" Leon asked. "Please don't take him away from me. He's...he's my friend."

Mr. Wang rolled his eyes. "Don't let me stop you."

Leon gave a questioning look. "I don't understand."

"You think I didn't see every interaction you had with the Projects through the camera's you had to 'adjust' every day? I knew what you were up to," Mr. Wang replied. Then his expression became serious. "But Leon, you'll have to let him go."

Leon turned back to face Emil, tears beginning to form in his eyes. "No. No, I cannot. He's my friend, and I don't wanna see him get torn apart in here—"

"That's the way it's supposed to be, Leon. You two have different natures. He was programmed to act a certain way, don't you know? Different natures, different outcomes."

"That's not fair and you know that!"

Mr. Wang looked to the floor guiltily. "It isn't fair, I know. But I have no control over what they want to do with him."

Leon closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Emil stayed silent the whole time, trying his hardest to catch onto the words the other two were saying through the intense ringing in his head.

"Fine," Leon said. He stood up to leave, but his gaze lingered on Emil sadly. He turned to Mr. Wang, then turned back to face Emil, then knelt down to hug Emil tightly.

The heat came tumbling back at Emil at full force. He didn't know why he felt so much heat, and his mechanical heart began to beat rapidly while the ringing in his ears sang at higher frequencies. Emil's eyes rolled back into his head again, even as he willed himself not to.

Leon pulled back and uttered his name softly, but it only sounded like a distant echo to Emil's ears. Emil's right arm instinctively reached out and grasped something cold, then brought it towards his own body, almost protectively.

"Emil, what are you—"

"My system has detected an anomaly," Emil said, eyes still rolled back. He didn't want to say the words, but they came spilling out of his mouth as if he were being controlled by an outside force. "Your system is overheated. To avoid possible destruction of inner components, you must shut down temporarily. I repeat: you must shut down temporarily."

Emil's hand then launched itself forward, plunging into something, or perhaps someone.

"Leon!" Mr. Wang called out in terror.

Emil blinked his eyes rapidly, and his clear vision was finally returned to him. He looked ahead and noticed his outstretched arm, then looked further and noticed his hand holding Leon's sharp screwdriver...

And he looked further...and saw the screwdriver sunk deeply into Leon's abdomen.

"I - Leon! I didn't mean to—"

"It's alright. I'm fine," Leon gasped, eyes wide in shock. "I'm fine. I'm fine."

Emil felt panic overtake him and he grasped Leon's shoulders tightly. He looked up to search for Mr. Wang, half expecting him to run over and attack him, but only found him to still be stationed at the door, frantically calling for backup on his handheld device.

"Stop the simulation! Stop everything! This is too much, too much—" Mr. Wang shouted into the device.

Emil looked back at Leon. He could fix him, right? He may not be a programmer, but he was a machine himself, so he must know at least something about machines. Right? Enough to fix what he had done to Leon?

His eyes trailed down to the screwdriver again, but he froze in horror at the sight.

A deep red color seeped through Leon's white uniform, spreading from the area Emil had stabbed him. "Leon...you're bleeding." How? How was that possible? "I didn't know there were androids that bled," he added numbly, shock slowing his moments.

Leon smiled weakly, but it appeared to be forced, as Emil noticed he had grasped the cloth surrounding the stab wound in a desperate attempt to calm himself from an unbearable pain Emil couldn't feel or understand.

"Not all of us are androids, Emil," Leon gasped, leaning into Emil, who wrapped his arms around the other protectively. Then, a realization hit.

"You're not going to die, are you?" Emil asked.

"That's not what I'm worried about right now," Leon replied, grunting quietly here and there.

"Then what—"

"Emil, this testing facility - Headquarters - is human-run."

The blue lights above suddenly flashed red, and an alarm blared loudly. Emil's eyes filled with tears when he realized he only had a few moments left.

"Leon, I don't want you to die," he pleaded hopelessly, resting Leon's head on his lap as the other looked up at him.

Leon's eyes were filled with tears as well. "I don't want you to die, either, Emil."

"At least start the simulation over again. How difficult is it to start over? This is a mess, we need to reconvene—"

Emil's vision began to blur, but he was unsure if it was because of his tears or because he was shutting down.

"Did you hear that?" Leon whispered. His entire chest was covered in blood at this point. Emil had never seen so much blood in his life. "They're likely going to start the simulation all over again. Perhaps you won't actually die, and we can meet again..." his voice trailed off. Emil looked down at his face and saw that Leon was incredibly pale.

"Leon! Leon I'm so sorry—"

"No need to apologize, Emil."

"I didn't intend to hurt you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," Emil whispered, holding Leon close.

"I'm sorry," he continued to whisper over and over again. "I'm sorry. _I'm so sorry_..."

_"I'm sorry... so sorry..."_

_"Emil, there's no need to apologize. I'm here."_

_"How long has he been asleep like this?"_

Emil groggily opened his eyes. He felt sick, a terrible, unbearable heat flushing throughout his entire body. He was sweating profusely, water trickling down his hair.

Actually, the water trickling through his hair may just be the damp towel pressed against his forehead. Emil slowly moved his head to the side, and the damp towel slid off of him slightly, but someone reached in and readjusted it.

He could barely see, but his vision was coming back to him slowly.

"Emil! Emil, relax. Deep breaths. The doctor is here to see you."

He knew that voice.

"Lukas?" he whispered in disbelief. How had he transported back to his implanted memory of living with his brother in their faraway cottage? He looked around. Yes, this was definitely their house from Emil's implanted memories. Why was he here? Was he being experimented on again?

"I'm here," Lukas replied softly. His brother reached out and felt his cheek for his temperature, and Emil felt somewhat soothed by his cool touch to his hot skin.

"He hasn't been eating," Lukas explained to the doctor, who was standing close by the bed. "And he's been having these vivid dreams. Sometimes I can barely wake him up."

The doctor approached slowly, and Emil focused on the sound of the careful footsteps coming his way. The doctor crouched down next to the bed to better inspect Emil, and it was then that Emil was able to better inspect the doctor.

The man had wild, unruly hair—

"I...I know you," Emil said softly in wonder. The doctor chuckled.

"Yes, Emil. I came to check up on you last week."

Emil stared at the man in disbelief. No. This couldn't be it. Mathias was his friend, not his doctor. Something was terribly wrong.

"Where's Leon? Is he alright?"

"I don't know anybody by that name," the doctor said. "I'm sorry."

"No! I was just with him! I - I might have killed him! I need to know what happened to him or I don't know what I'd do with myself—"

"Relax, Emil. It was a fever dream. You haven't killed anybody."

Emil was quiet. This couldn't be. This didn't make sense.

He bit back a sob and looked up at Lukas, who was nervously fidgeting with his sleeve. "Lukas," he said, and Lukas nodded and rushed to his side next to the doctor.

"They said the simulation would start anew," Emil murmured. "Isn't that wonderful? You can finally see him again..."

"See who again, brother?"

Emil blinked rapidly, his vision clouding over with black spots. He willed himself to look over at the doctor - Mathias! - before his vision finally began to escape him completely.

"Dr. Køhler, do something—"

And then there was nothing.

* * *

"Hello."

Lukas jolted at the voice. He hadn't expected the machine to speak to him immediately after being powered on, but he forced himself to appear nonchalant. He couldn't show fear to his newest project, especially because he hadn't really trusted the android just yet.

"Good morning," Lukas replied, but he mentally slapped himself. He was making a fool out of himself already, and he had just powered on his invention!

"There's no need to be embarrassed. I'm only a machine," the android responded.

"Right, well," Lukas huffed. "I'm just a bit nervous, if you couldn't tell."

"Why?"

"Why? You're asking why I'm nervous?"

"Yes. You appear uncomfortable," said the android.

Lukas blushed at that. He was uncomfortable, yes, but not in the way he had expected.

Perhaps he had made the android to look too handsome.

Lukas said nothing back and simply attempted to hide his blush beneath his hands.

"What is your name?"

"My name is Lukas."

"I see. It's very nice to meet you, Lukas. I apologize, but I don't know my own name."

Lukas exhaled, then brought his hands away from his face completely to smile warmly at the android. "You will be called Mathias from now on. How does that sound?"

Mathias returned the smile. Lukas's breath hitched. "Mathias. My name is Mathias." A pause, then, "Where did you get that name from, may I ask?"

Lukas thought about it. Why did he choose that name?

Mathias. The name reminded him of something, yet he couldn't put his finger on it. The name reminded him of light. Blue lights. Northern lights? Perhaps he was getting too ahead of himself. The name reminded him of laughter and joy. It reminded him of—

Lukas picked up a coin from his desk and flipped it in the air absentmindedly. He had much to think about. But for now, he would focus on getting to know his new, beautiful invention. The invention that sat just opposite him, behind glass. Perhaps he'd meet him beyond that glass, sometime in the future. Something pulled him towards Mathias, but he couldn't tell what or why.

Why did he choose the name Mathias for his invention? Lukas looked up at the android behind the glass and smiled wistfully. Mathias. The name didn't register completely in his mind, but he was sure, somewhere in the past, he had met someone with that name that had sparked curiosity in him. Curiosity, happiness, love.

"It suits you. Mathias."

_The End._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to thank everyone who took the time to read this weird thing I created with my brain. You guys are honestly the best and I really don’t deserve amazing readers like you, but I am super thankful nonetheless.
> 
> I know this fic isn’t perfect. I intend to go back and do some revisions, but some of your comments are really helpful in that regard, so THANK YOU SO MUCH!! Overall I hope the story made at least a little bit of sense to you guys.
> 
> (And yes, this fic is heavily inspired by Ex Machina, my favorite movie of all time.)
> 
> Anyhow. What’s next??? Hetalia Night At The Museum? EstLat? A HongIce zombie apocalypse fic? Stay tuned I guess, haha.
> 
> Thank you again!! *gives you a slice of cake*
> 
> :))


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